Miami Dolphins make it official; moving training facility
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins have officially announced that their training facility days in Davie, are all but over as they move to Miami Gardens.
Earlier the Miami Dolphins met with local media to announce their move to the stadium location in what is going to be a state of the art training and executive complex that will for the first time become the home to all Dolphins employees and players.
The new location will be adjacent to Hard Rock Stadium off Northwest 27th avenue. Vice President and CEO Tom Garfinkel said that facility will take up about 2,000 current parking spots but said that last year they had over 4,000 not used because the stadium capacity was reduced after the renovations.
It makes a lot of sense for the Dolphins to centralize their operations. The business operations are located at the stadium and the football operations in Davie. Garfinkel said the relationship with the Nova Southeastern University was really good but that the team was outgrowing the facility and needed to expand.
"“Facilities don’t win football games,” Garfinkel said. “People do. But I will say that having a great facility is indicative of the best-in-class organization that Steve Ross wants to have. And so this is the next step forward in that evolution and I think is important to creating the best environment we can for our players and our staff.” – Tom Garfinkel via PalmBeachPost.com"
In addition Garfinkel also said that traffic should improve as well with the additions of pedestrian bridges and tunnels that will aid in getting fans from the stadium to the outer parking areas. Parking areas close to the stadium will still be available.
In the image below, released by the Miami Dolphins at today’s event, the practice fields and the new facility can be seen in the upper left hand corner. At the bottom center you can see the additions of the tennis courts which will become home to the Miami Open. Across the street at the bottom is additional parking that is being upgraded and paved.
The Dolphins are not stopping there. Through Garfinkel the team announced that they will be purchasing 88 acres of land in West Palm Beach where they will begin growing their own sod for the stadium. Last years field was horrible at the beginning of the year. The Dolphins want control over the playing surface moving forward.
Miami is hoping that the sod and the pedestrian changes will be in place starting for the 2019 season but the training complex won’t be in place until 2020 at the earliest.