FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Demolition began Wednesday at Lockhart Stadium as Fort Lauderdale prepares to serve as the temporary home for David Beckham's Major League Soccer franchise.
An interim agreement between Inter Miami CF and the city allows for the demolition of the aging stadium, but there is no final agreement to build a new facility to temporarily house the team at the Lockhart Stadium site yet.
Still, all sides are confident it will get done.
"I think we're very, very satisfied with the agreement," Beckham's partner, Jorge Mas, said. "I think it'll be done in the next month."
Mas and his team want to build a new state-of-the-art soccer facility in place of Lockhart Stadium that would serve as Inter Miami CF's home for its inaugural season next year until Miami Freedom Park is built. The new venue in Fort Lauderdale would also serve as a training facility for Inter Miami CF and the home of its youth soccer academy.
"The devil's always in the details, but we all have faith and trust in one another that we're trying to work to the ultimate goal of making this happen," Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis said.
Lockhart Stadium, which opened in 1959, was once home to another MLS team -- the defunct Miami Fusion -- from 1998 to 2001. It was also the longtime home of the North American Soccer League's Fort Lauderdale Strikers and Florida Atlantic's football team.
The stadium has been without a tenant since 2016.