Exclusive: Marine Stadium Group Facing Its Demise
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Seven years of hard work may be coming to an end for Don Worth.
Worth is co-founder of Friends of Miami Marine Stadium, the volunteer group that prepared a plan to save the abandoned and decaying stadium. While the renderings looked impressive, the details of the plan were not. It was turned down by Miami Commissioners and the group was blasted by its own spokesperson, Gloria Estefan.
"My apologies to Gloria," Worth said. "She made an amazing contribution to this project. She took us on when nobody else did. Yes, I think we let her down and I feel bad about it."
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Friends of Miami Marine Stadium was facing a deadline to put a proposal together. Some board members admit the proposal was rushed. One called it a Hail Mary pass to get something done.
The proposal included a maritime center, a dry dock facility and a park. It looked good on paper but there were questions about the financing and about board members possibly benefiting financially.
"I think our credibility has been damaged maybe fatally," said Worth, who voted against the proposal and did not attend the Miami Commission meeting at which it was proposed. "I thought it was too much, the projections were based on nothing, there was no real meat, no financial sources."
With the volunteer group out of the picture as Worth predicts, the stadium will be back in the hands of the City of Miami.
"I do know that the stadium will go on and there needs to be a public interest watchdog group looking over it," he said.
But Worth doubts that watchdog group will be Friends of Miami Marine Stadium.
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