Nu Stadium’s opening last weekend was the most visible milestone yet for Miami Freedom Park, but not without some drama.
Inter Miami didn’t secure a temporary certificate of occupancy for the 26,700-seat venue, which was built with a $450 million construction loan, before the game started. The team, led by soccer’s most famous star, Leonel Messi, hosted its first match against Austin FC with a “limited event” permit issued by the city of Miami, and it is still waiting for the occupancy certificate ahead of its next game this weekend, the Miami Herald reported.
The episode showed how tight the stadium’s timeline was for Inter Miami’s owners, billionaire Jorge Mas and his brother Jose Mas, retired soccer star David Beckham and Los Angeles-based Ares Management.
Now the pressure shifts to building out other portions of the first phase of the $1 billion mixed-use development, not to mention filling up nearly 1 million square feet of retail and office space. That’s a tall order in South Florida’s highly competitive commercial real market, according to experts.
“I think it’s a very hard thing to fill,” said Hollywood-based retail real estate investor Todd Nepola. “What they’re building is really a one-off concept. This isn’t like putting a shopping center on Commercial Boulevard and University Drive [in Broward County]. This is a really tricky play.”
Still, the Mas brothers, who are the lead partners, have the financial resources to be patient with Miami Freedom Park’s leasing strategy, said Nepola, who leads Current Capital Real Estate Group. He was speaking as an expert on the market and is not involved with leasing the property.
“I would never doubt anything the Mas brothers do because they know their stuff,” he said. “I would rather see them slow-roll the launch and get the right operators in there.”
On the office side, Miami Freedom Park represents a new submarket that offers tenants a central spot, Cushman & Wakefield’s Brian Gale told The Real Deal. His team is handling Miami Freedom Park’s office leasing.
“We are smack in the middle of the city,” he said. “What potential tenants realize is that Miami Freedom Park offers the most accessible location compared to Brickell, Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, Miami Beach and Wynwood.”
The first phase will have 500,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment, along with a 58-acre park and a planned 250,000-square-foot office building. The cash and financing to build that phase hasn’t been revealed.
Inter Miami is also building a new city of Miami headquarters, which will combine the city’s administrative departments, currently in a downtown Miami office, and city hall, which will leave its longtime home, a converted PanAm Airways seaplane terminal along Coconut Grove’s waterfront.
The Miami City Commission recently approved a change to Inter Miami’s contract, extending the deadline for the Major League Soccer franchise to make a required $10 million payment for public park improvements at the 131-acre city-owned site.
The first phase’s office component, which will be known as Heron 1, is still going through final design, Gale said. The project is scheduled for completion in 2028.
Most of the prospective tenants are local and out-of-state corporate offices, Gale said, noting that Miami Freedom Park is going to be a standalone submarket.
Miami Freedom Park and Inter Miami executives and spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment. At the Miami CCIM real estate conference in January, Miami Freedom Park executive Terry Frazier Reed said the first phase focuses on building a brand identity and in-person experiences.
First up are spaces for Miami Freedom Park’s three announced tenants: Fever, a live-entertainment company that is taking 30,000 square feet for a rotating line-up of events; Toroverde, a Puerto Rican-based eco-tourism adventure firm that’s planning a 24,000-square-foot attraction that will include climbing obstacle courses, arcades and a restaurant; and Jupiter-based PopStroke, a miniature golf and entertainment company that signed on for 75,000 square feet.
“We are creating these experiences that will bring people beyond soccer games,” Reed said. “That’s our mission.”
Miami Freedom Park and PopStroke began discussions in 2022, the year the city approved the ground lease, PopStroke CEO Greg Bartoli told The Real Deal.
The company, which counts Tiger Woods as an investor, operates facilities across the U.S. that feature two 18-hole putting courses, large TVs and jumbotrons, bars, a restaurant and games like cornhole and foosball. PopStroke has sites in seven states, including nine in Florida.
The concept has locations near other professional sports stadiums in Las Vegas and in Glendale, Arizona, Bartoli said.
“We are not concerned about being one of the first brands that is open for business at Miami Freedom Park,” he said. “Once Miami Freedom Park fills out, it will get better over time.”
Gartoli declined to comment on PopStroke’s rent at Miami Freedom Park, but noted that “Miami is more expensive than a lot of other markets in the state.” He also explained that PopStroke facilities usually require 3-plus acres, which is “really challenging” to find in Miami.
PopStroke has been working on the final design for the past year and is expecting to start construction on May 1, he said.
Miami Freedom Park has another 375,000 square feet of retail space to fill. Leasing has shifted to landing retail and dining tenants that can fill spaces ranging between 2,500 square feet to 30,000 square feet, a news release states. Brokers for InHouse Commercial, Newmark and Magellan Realty Group, which are handling the retail leasing, declined to comment.
Retail real estate is performing well in Miami-Dade County, with the average asking rent hitting $43 per square foot, representing a 1 percent increase compared to the previous year, while continuing a steady rise since 2020, according to Marcus & Millichap. The county’s vacancy rate was 4 percent in the first quarter, so supply is tight.
But that doesn’t make things easy for Miami Freedom Park, retail real estate players said.
“300,000-plus square feet is a lot of space to fill in this economy,” said Andy Hellinger, a principal with Miami-based Urban X. “But they have something special, in the team and the intrigue of Messi and company.”
Hellinger’s firm developed River Landing, a massive mixed-use project along the Miami River near Miami Freedom Park. The development has 300,000 square feet of retail anchored by a Publix supermarket and big box stores like TJ Maxx and Ross Dress for Less.
Word on the street is that Adidas will be opening a large experiential store at Miami Freedom Park, Hellinger said. “I don’t know if that is true or not, but that is a store that I think could do well,” he said. “A Dick’s House of Sport would do well also. But it’s not a place where you’re going to say, ‘Hey, let’s go shop at Miami Freedom Park.’”
On the dining side, Miami Freedom Park would benefit from having local brands that reflect the city’s international flare, said Paulina Begliomini with Miami-based PB Restaurant Partners, a consulting firm that handles leasing and permitting for restaurateurs. However, sports franchises typically want a share of a tenant’s gross sales as part of the rent equation, she said.
“We really try to negotiate and mitigate that concessionaires’ fee,” Begliomini said. “But the percentage rent is typically so high that sometimes it doesn’t make it worth it for local brands to participate.”
Miami Freedom Park restaurant concepts would also need to cater to tourists, said Current Capital’s Nepola. “I would be hard pressed to believe that your local resident from Aventura or Coral Gables is going to want to spend Friday night hanging out at this place,” he said. “If you put a great local restaurant in there — even if it’s a trendy, hot name — I don’t think it would really be able to survive.”
