In South Florida, the temporary home for David Beckham’s Inter Miami Major League Soccer team was converted from an aging old stadium and completed in just 10 months. Here, the joint venture project is detailed.
The project involved demolishing a 1950s era stadium and replacing it with a $130 million, 18,000-seat canopied stadium and 64-acre training facility. The all-star joint venture (JV) partnership consisted of: the Orlando office of Barton Malow, bringing to bear its national expertise in sports facility construction management; Lamartec, who was originally awarded the contract and served as the project lead; and Moss Construction, who brought in-depth familiarity and relationships in the South Florida market and its subcontractors.
The construction team fast-tracked the project’s completion in 10 months by employing the following strategies:
Divide and conquer. The JV partnership divided into two teams; one managing the stadium and the other managing the training facility. The teams shared a general superintendent and vice president for coordinated leadership, with each team assigned parallel project managers and superintendents.
Resource allocation. The dual team approach would have normally been challenging with multiple teams competing for the project’s same group of subcontractors. In this case though, the innovative solution required each subcontractor to designate two separate teams to prevent confusion and to streamline communications. Additionally, Barton Malow established a BIM coordinator for each team, and employed its Virtual Design + Construction technology. This ensured that when materials arrived on site, the superintendents were able to virtually see exact placement, which ultimately resulted in saving time and minimizing conflicts when actually placing on the site.
Boots on the ground. The teams that successfully completed this exciting project are no strangers to iconic sports construction. They have built over one billion dollars in sports venues and training complexes in Florida. This experience includes Orlando City’s Exploria Stadium, Miami Open’s New Home at Hard Rock Stadium, Daytona International Speedway, Marlins Park, New York Mets Spring Training, Tampa Bay Lightning Training Complex, the Atlanta Braves Spring Training, and many more. The camaraderie that formed immediately with Barton Malow, Moss and Lamartec resulted in a unified execution of an exciting facility that David Beckham and his MLS team can call home.
