MIAMI — The Argentine Football Association wants to build a youth soccer academy in North Bay Village and says that could potentially lead to some of the world’s top players training in the tiny waterfront community.
The Village Commission on Monday voted to push ahead with ongoing negotiations with Argentina’s soccer governing body for a project that would include five synthetic turf soccer fields, a community center, a dog park and courts for padel, an increasingly popular racket sport, all adjacent to Treasure Island Elementary School.
A representative for the Argentine Football Association, Horacio Gennari, told the Miami Herald the facility would essentially become the organization’s “headquarters” in the United States. He said he envisions the men’s national team, one of the best in the world led by Lionel Messi, using it occasionally for training. And he said the association is talking to Javier Mascherano, a former captain of the Argentine men’s national team, about possibly leading the youth academy.
“This is our dream,” Gennari said, noting that the location could prove useful leading up to the 2026 World Cup in North America, for which Miami is vying to host matches along with other U.S. cities.
Officials in South Florida have pushed in recent years to make the region a soccer destination — most notably with a controversial and not-yet-approved plan in the city of Miami to build a soccer stadium as part of a large real estate deal.
But North Bay Village is an unlikely landing spot for one of the world’s most decorated national soccer organizations, a potential pairing that developed in part due to Gennari’s own ties to the location and the village mayor’s connection to international soccer.
Gennari said he had explored other potential locations for the academy in Surfside, Hialeah and Doral, but ultimately landed on the one in his current hometown of North Bay Village, where he said he can see the proposed site from his balcony.
Mayor Brent Latham, who has championed the plan, oversaw media relations for the North American soccer governing body CONCACAF until 2018. Latham told the Herald his connections to the international soccer world helped the plan materialize, but said he no longer works in that space and wouldn’t personally benefit.
“There were existing connections through my work history,” he said. “So we met and talked about if there might be synergies.”
Under a proposed 30-year deal, the Argentine Football Association would pay a maximum of $6.5 million for construction costs and share 5% of revenues from facility rentals with the village.
Latham says the project would spruce up the village’s largest green space that has languished for years. The field that currently houses a youth soccer program is dilapidated and floods frequently, while nearby tennis courts have withered and aren’t open for use.
“The project makes sense to me because it provides things for the community,” Latham said during Monday’s meeting. “If this opportunity were to go walking, there’s probably not another one around the corner.”
The soccer fields — including a large field designed for 11 vs. 11 competition and four smaller fields for 5 vs. 5 play — would be available to the school’s students during school hours. At other times it would be split between the Argentine soccer academy, rentals by the general public and free public use.
The project is far from a done deal.
The commission’s 5-0 vote on Monday gave Village Manager Ralph Rosado the green light to negotiate with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, whose board would need to approve changes to an agreement with the village regarding use of the Treasure Island Elementary School facilities.
In a March 31 letter to the school district, Rosado said the village is requesting a move from a 20-year to a 30-year joint use agreement with the district, plus additional hours for the village’s use of the fields and a school parking lot. The public school has over 400 students enrolled from pre-K through fifth grade.
A spokesperson for Miami-Dade public schools, Jaquelyn Calzadilla, said in a statement Tuesday that district staff “is evaluating the proposal and will continue to work with the Village’s administration on the matter.”
The details of the project are also subject to change. The village has not yet negotiated a development agreement with the Argentine Football Association, and Monday’s meeting featured several unresolved questions from commissioners about how to maximize public access, whether the association would pay any taxes on the property, and who would foot the bill if project costs exceed $6.5 million.
“I don’t think $6.5 million is going to get us what we are expecting, especially considering rising construction costs plus remediation needed for drainage,” said Commissioner Rachel Streitfeld. “What happens after $6.5 million is spent and we don’t have the world-class community center and soccer facility like we were promised?”
Fabian Pal, an attorney representing the Argentine Football Association, said he would bring that question back to his client but didn’t think the association would approve a “blank check.”
“This is South Florida,” Streitfeld said. “City after city here has heard promises from sports teams that have failed.”
Village officials have been mulling the proposal since October, when the Argentine Football Association made an unsolicited bid to develop the Treasure Island Elementary School facilities and a nearby village-owned public works building that would be torn down and relocated under the current plan.
North Bay Village solicited bids for other proposals at the site in November, but the Argentine Football Association was the lone bidder.
So far, the village and the association have hashed out a preliminary term sheet, site plan, and proposed program schedule, and the association has released renderings of the complex that would sprawl across five acres on Treasure Island, the easternmost of North Bay Village’s three islands connected by the John F. Kennedy Causeway.
