MIAMI — If you’ve driven near Miami International Airport lately, surely you have seen Miami Freedom Park Stadium rising and taking shape.

Inter Miami’s 25,000-seat new home is due to open in Spring 2026 and stadium officials said Tuesday that construction is accelerating and on schedule.

There is a chance MLS will give the club a cushion and have Inter Miami play its first few games on the road next season, as is customary with stadium construction projects, but the plan is to play all home games at the new stadium.

“We’ve seen a precedent for that in the league, we’re actively working with the league as they set the schedule,” Graham Oxley, Vice President of Miami Freedom Park, told members of the media during a stadium tour Tuesday. “We want to make sure that when we open, we’re ready and it’s not rushed. The goal and what we’re aiming for is for all of our home matches to be here.”

The state-of-the-art stadium includes a two-tier seating bowl with an elevated main concourse, sideline balconies with clubs, suites, and a press box, and a tensile cable canopy roof.

Oxley said the canopy is the main architectural feature of Miami Freedom Park Stadium and it is 50% done on the structural elements. The next step is raising the canopy, which is going to be the largest in the league.

“It basically starts from inside the pitch, from the touch lines all the way out over the concourse,” Oxley said. “It’s a challenging engineering feat, especially when you throw in the hurricane codes we that we have to build and adhere to here in Miami, but [team co-owners] Jorge and Jose Mas and everyone loved it, so we found a way to do it.”

After they finish the canopy, construction will move inside the stadium to get the clubs, locker rooms, dining areas, restrooms, concourses and field areas ready.

“We rush a bunch of bodies inside and they’ll go gangbusters between now and the beginning of next year,” Oxley said.

in 2018, D.C. United was forced to play 12 of its first 14 MLS regular season games away from home because Audi Field was not ready to open until July 14.

In 2021, Austin FC played its first eight matches on the road before debuting at the Q2 Stadium in mid-June.

Miami Freedom Park officials hope to finish on time and avoid delays.

The Mas brothers and co-owner David Beckham spent years trying to secure a location for a stadium. Finally, in April of 2022, The city commission voted 4-1 to green light the team’s proposed $1 billion Miami Freedom Park stadium project.

Inter Miami kicked off its inaugural season in March 2020 in Fort Lauderdale with the understanding that the team would eventually move to Miami, which was the league’s condition when Beckham’s quest for a team began in 2014. After years of political in-fighting and delays, the commission voted to give the Inter Miami group the go-ahead to build the project on the site of the Melreese Golf Course.

The development will include the $350 million stadium, a 750-room hotel, retail village, an office park and a 58-acre park. The project is privately funded, and team owners received an $8 million infrastructure grant from the state.

Inter Miami has been playing in a temporary stadium in Fort Lauderdale since its launch in 2020. Miami Freedom Park will offer the fancy amenities and lounges found at other top MLS stadiums, including a tunnel club with glass windows where fans can see the players enter and exit the field.

There will also be 5,000 on-site parking spaces. Fans who don’t want to drive will be able to take Tri Rail and Metro Rail and walk from the nearby airport transportation center.

The stadium media tour took place on Lionel Messi’s 38th birthday, a day after the team continued its improbable Club World Cup run by qualifying for the Round of 16 with a tie against Brazilian power Palmeiras. Messi’s contract with Inter Miami expires at the end of this season, but he is expected to sign an extension through 2026 soon, and he will get equity in the team upon his retirement.

Meanwhile, a few miles east of the stadium, in Wynwood, the club is working hard to sell season ticket packages with the help of an immersive stadium exhibit. Season ticket holders have been invited in waves based on seniority and are greeted with a hype video and then have a chance to sit in the various styles of seats, see the Leagues Cup trophy and one of Messi’s eight Ballon d’Or trophies, and then examine a 3D model of the stadium.

So far it has been by appointment only, and it is scheduled to open to the public later this summer.

Premium season ticket packages range from $3,825 to $5,525 for the East Club to $5,865 to $12,495 for the West Club to Loge Boxes for $40,120 to $60,520. East Club tickets will require a two-year contract, West Club a three-year contract and Loge a five-year contract. Most annual auto renewal tickets in the reserved sections will remain one-year commitments and those prices have not been announced yet.

For more information, visit intermiamicf.com

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