The Miami Marine Stadium, thought of a masterpiece of midcentury Brutalist structure with its huge cantilevered roof and a shocking view of town, opened in 1963 because the nation’s solely race venue for powerboats, a serious image of South Florida.
The historic gem designed by a Cuban refugee was the backdrop of Elvis Presley’s 1967 movie “Clambake” and a beloved venue of Gloria Estefan and the late Jimmy Buffett, who carried out on a movable, floating stage.
However since closing in 1992 after struggling critical injury throughout Hurricane Andrew, the 6,500-seat venue has fallen into disarray and at present is fenced off and coated in graffiti regardless of being listed on the U.S. Nationwide Register of Historic Locations.
On Tuesday, voters will determine whether or not to permit town to companion with a non-public firm to return the distinctive stadium located on Virginia Key throughout the water from downtown Miami to its former glory.
President Richard Nixon and Sammy Davis Jr. appeared collectively on the stadium throughout a 1972 marketing campaign rally to assist Nixon’s reelection bid. And residents would collect for Easter dawn companies, in addition to rejoice Our Girl of Charity, a illustration of the Virgin Mary honored by many Cubans and Cuban Individuals.
“It encapsulated a time interval in Miami that’s extremely distinctive with an unbelievable story that touches all Miamians,” Miami Commissioner Damian Pardo stated. “So that is actually a spot that connects with Miami at a really deep and private stage.”
The stadium has a wealthy historical past in Miami
Hilario Candela was in his late 20s and a current refugee from the Cuban Revolution when he designed the construction. He spent many years designing buildings round Miami and led group efforts to revive the marine stadium till his loss of life in 2022.
When it was added to the Nationwide Park Service’s Nationwide Register of Historic Locations in 2018, then-Secretary of State Ken Detzner known as the stadium “one of many state of Florida’s most original architectural and historic sources,” and “an formidable instance of mid-century Modernist structure” that represented the “multi-cultural influences evolving within the metropolis of Miami in the course of the Nineteen Sixties.”
The 12 months earlier than his 2023 passing, Buffett wrote a letter to Miami officers, urging them to avoid wasting the “little cathedral of musical enjoyable.” The Mayor of Margaritaville described a 1985 live performance on the marine stadium that ended with him leaping off the floating stage into the encircling water, becoming a member of cheering swimmers and boaters.
“These had been the ‘Miami Vice’ days, and Don Johnson launched us,” Buffett wrote of the actor within the common Nineteen Eighties tv crime drama. “WITCO Desperadoes from Trinidad opened the present, and the Coral Reefer Band completed the evening with what I believe was one of the crucial enjoyable reveals, for band and followers, that I’ve ever finished.”
Buffett’s daughter, Savannah, continues to work with Restore Miami Marine Stadium. The group’s co-founder, Donald Price, started a mission to avoid wasting the stadium in 2008, shortly after metropolis officers on the time introduced plans to tear it down.
“The structure provides it the wow, the historical past provides it its soul,” Price stated. “It’s only a particular, magical place, and so many individuals in Miami have had such memorable experiences there.”
Voters will assist determine the stadium’s future
Breakwater Hospitality Group co-founder Emi Guerra, who’s working with the corporate chosen to companion with town, stated the stadium’s view of town skyline and its location proper off Biscayne Bay may make it an leisure vacation spot that rivals Denver’s Pink Rocks Amphitheatre, an open-air venue constructed into the aspect of a mountain.
