In one of our last posts, we talked a little bit about the Arison family and their, um, business practices. Yesterday’s article in the Herald, reminds us of one of the Arison family business’ legacies—the Miami Arena.
The story is about a local entrepreneur and activist Brad Knoefler and the temporary park he built on top of the rubble of the old Miami Arena, the former home of the Miami Heat. According to an old article in the Miami New Times in 1996, the arena became an “unusable relic” just eight years after it was built. At the time former Commissioner Katy Sorenson joked, “I’ve driven cars longer.”
What made the arena obsolete was the fact that it “only” had 15,000 seats that the Heat only sold out 14 out of 41 times in 1996. As you may recall from our last post, the Arisons begged, demanded, kicked, screamed and threatened to move the Heat until taxpayers were “forced” to shell out millions to build another stadium—the American Airlines Arena.
But the one thing they weren’t in a hurry to do was clean up the site of the old stadium. It sat there vacant like it belonged in an old western ghost town. Tourists walking by would often comment on it, because who could miss a massive empty pink stadium. Miami was forced to sell it at massive loss to developer Glenn Straub. After realizing that he couldn’t do anything with it, he tore it down, hence the rubble.
The Herald article lauds Knoefler for stepping up to build a temporary park amongst the ruins of the old Arena. But the article forgets to ask one question. Remember Micky Arison, the one that everyone says does “a lot” for Miami? You know, the one whose family helped start the New World Symphony? Why didn’t he do “a lot” to fix up the vacant lot he left us when he moved to the AA Arena? You would think he owes us a little after not giving taxpayers a cut of the profits from the Arena like he promised. Hmmm…maybe he was at the symphony, or better yet, a Heat game.
Sources:
- http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/19/2597929/a-green-park-sprouts-for-now-atop.html
- http://www.miaminewtimes.com/1996-05-09/news/micky-arison-is-a-greedy-corporate-pig-and-other-observations-about-big-boys-and-their-expensive-toys/3/
