Most don’t disagree. Most Baseball fans in SFLA love the ballpark. I literally seen the statistics from sponsors, season ticket holders and casual fans that gave outstanding reviews about the venue when the Marlins moved. You make valid points about parking and surrounding area. Everything else, you’re way off. The atmosphere sucks because it’s empty. It’s empty because the team sucks. Go to a major event like WBC game or HR derby and it’s loud as **** in there. Go read comments from players at the All Star game a couple years back, how they raved about the atmosphere. I’ll take their opinions over yours.
Marlins Park looks like a school library / can opener because the GC had mainly buillt school buildings and jails. Bob Moss had no business being the main contractor on that job. He broke campaign finance laws with the county commish to get the contract.
Let's look at Bob Moss. He had a history of meddling in local elections in North Carolina and it blew everyone's mind when Hunt asked them to partnered with them to build the Panther's hockey stadium. At the time Moss only built jails, school libraries, and a few condos that ultimately were failures. They had just built the Palm Beach County jail, which was a complete failure. After 10 months PAST THE COMPLETION DATE, Palm Beach county had to hire a new contractor to finish the job. BOB MOSS COULD NOT EVEN BUILD A JAIL, yet he was asked to partner on a hockey stadium?
But wait, we see why they partnered with Bob Moss... again, he was funneling money from his company to politicians in Broward. He ended up paying federal fines and had to start a new company. So he relocated his family from NC to SoFla.
Then Bob Moss moved on to a condominium fail with the Tao Condos in Sunrise. Again, he could not finish the job, broke investors, and the bank took over.
Oddly enough, he gets the main contracting gig for the new Marlins Park. Oddly enough, Dade county commish Joe Martinez, who originally was fighting the stadium, started supporting it and Bob Moss. AND AGAIN, BOB MOSS WAS FINED FOR VIOLATING CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW by funneling money to Martinez through his business.
For extra reading:
Marlins Park was never intended to be state of the art. It was an emergency build because Jeff Loria threatened to move the team. And he couldn't put any money into it because the "team was losing money". Let's not even get into the Mayor race, and how the stadium was used for leverage. But it should be noted that TAXPAYERS GOT NO VOTE
Then, according to WikiLeaks, Loria was lying about team finances. So he orders a third party review of the team finances by HIS OWN COMPANY. The SEC steps in and starts investigating.
Ironically, the SEC then ends its investigation when Jeff Loria's good friend, President Donald Trump announces that he wants Loria to be the US Ambassador to France.
Loria then sells the Marlins for $1.2 Billion. He bought it for $150 Million. That is over a 1 Billion dollar profit. Because he put absolutely NO MONEY into the building of the stadium, part of the agreement, was that Miami-Dade got 5% of the profit when he sold the team. That's $60 Million that should have gone to the county when he sold it. The county got $0 and are now suing Jeff Loria.
Loria played Miami taxpayers. That’s the ONLY story behind Marlin’s Park.
There is nothing "state of the art" about this: