Bobcat
Founding Member
With a new ad, Jimmy Buffett, the bard of Margaritaville who played many a memorable show at the Miami Marine Stadium, joins the effort to save the deteriorated architectural landmark.
* Jimmy Buffett's public service announcement
Mary Lopez still remembers vividly the morning decades ago when she attended a Catholic church sunrise service at the now-shuttered Miami Marine Stadium with her parents. The worshipers were so quiet you could hear the waves break. Her mom and dad clutched her hands as the priest celebrated Mass.
''It was just the peace you could feel,'' said Lopez, 39, who lives in Miami. ``It's like a frozen moment.''
But that was a long time ago. The stadium on Virginia Key, thought to be the only marine amphitheater of its kind and size in the world, has sat empty for 17 years and its fate has been in limbo.
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It would be a fitting new chapter in Jimmy Buffett's evolution from beach-bum singer to retailing powerhouse: buying an NFL stadium for a song.
That's apparently what happened in the recent deal to name the home field of the Miami Dolphins after LandShark Lager, Buffett's beer. His central contribution: rewriting the lyrics of one of his most popular songs into a Dolphins jingle.
The novel arrangement marks the latest marketing feat for a singer who didn't have a No. 1 album until five years ago but has attached his Margaritaville brand to blenders, tequila, chain restaurants, frozen shrimp, flip-flops, lawn furniture and casinos.
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2nd Miami board rejects Virginia Key plan, calls it `utter nonsense'
The city of Miami's big plans for Virginia Key got trashed. Again.
For the second week in a row, a city board on Wednesday night gave a unanimous thumbs-down to the city's proposal for remaking the ecologically rich but much abused island into a natural and recreational playground.
An old pirate has joined the fight to rescue a favorite haunt from the pillages of neglect.
Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett has publicly endorsed preservationists' efforts to restore and reopen the city-owned Miami Marine Stadium on Virginia Key, the site of many a Parrothead's fondest -- if also foggy -- memories.
In a newly released public-service spot, intercut with video from a 1985 Marine Stadium show that Buffett calls one of his Coral Reefer Band's best, the singer urges fans to support restoration of the graffiti-covered architectural landmark, closed since 1992.
``It's a symbol of everything that's great about Florida -- boats, music, water and great Florida fun,'' a smiling Buffett says as a live version of Margaritaville from the stadium show plays in the background. ``The stadium deserves a future.''
The concert shots illustrate why the stadium, designed for speedboat racing, proved a memorable concert venue: A packed grandstand sways to the Coral Reefers, who play on a floating stage surrounded by anchored boats and mobs of people splashing in the water and bobbing on kayaks or inflatables.
Stadium supporters say snagging the support of the singer, a God-like figure to the multitudes of worshipers at the church of Buffett, took a year and represents a coup for their campaign.
``He is the single performer who is most identified with that stadium,'' said Don Worth, a founder of Friends of Miami Marine Stadium, which has been leading the preservation effort with Dade Heritage Trust. ``I like to think we proved ourselves to him. It's a huge credibility boost for us.''
The campaign won historic designation from the city for the stadium, which sits at the edge of a man-made water basin, and garnered worldwide attention for the grandstand and its dramatic folded-concrete roof, increasingly recognized as an architectural and engineering masterpiece.
But supporters recognize the financially strapped city is unlikely to foot the cost of restoring and operating the stadium by itself.
With the city's agreement, the World Monuments Fund has commissioned a privately-funded, $50,000 engineering study of the stadium to determine its structural condition and the extent of needed repairs, Worth said. The study is scheduled to begin this week.
The group's fondest wish: ``To have Jimmy Buffett at the Marine Stadium again,'' said Dade Heritage Trust Director Becky Roper Matkov.
Is Jimmy game? Sure sounds like it.
``We had a great time at the marine stadium,'' he says in the spot. ``Let's do it again.''
The Miami Herald
* Jimmy Buffett's public service announcement
Mary Lopez still remembers vividly the morning decades ago when she attended a Catholic church sunrise service at the now-shuttered Miami Marine Stadium with her parents. The worshipers were so quiet you could hear the waves break. Her mom and dad clutched her hands as the priest celebrated Mass.
''It was just the peace you could feel,'' said Lopez, 39, who lives in Miami. ``It's like a frozen moment.''
But that was a long time ago. The stadium on Virginia Key, thought to be the only marine amphitheater of its kind and size in the world, has sat empty for 17 years and its fate has been in limbo.
•
It would be a fitting new chapter in Jimmy Buffett's evolution from beach-bum singer to retailing powerhouse: buying an NFL stadium for a song.
That's apparently what happened in the recent deal to name the home field of the Miami Dolphins after LandShark Lager, Buffett's beer. His central contribution: rewriting the lyrics of one of his most popular songs into a Dolphins jingle.
The novel arrangement marks the latest marketing feat for a singer who didn't have a No. 1 album until five years ago but has attached his Margaritaville brand to blenders, tequila, chain restaurants, frozen shrimp, flip-flops, lawn furniture and casinos.
•
2nd Miami board rejects Virginia Key plan, calls it `utter nonsense'
The city of Miami's big plans for Virginia Key got trashed. Again.
For the second week in a row, a city board on Wednesday night gave a unanimous thumbs-down to the city's proposal for remaking the ecologically rich but much abused island into a natural and recreational playground.
An old pirate has joined the fight to rescue a favorite haunt from the pillages of neglect.
Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett has publicly endorsed preservationists' efforts to restore and reopen the city-owned Miami Marine Stadium on Virginia Key, the site of many a Parrothead's fondest -- if also foggy -- memories.
In a newly released public-service spot, intercut with video from a 1985 Marine Stadium show that Buffett calls one of his Coral Reefer Band's best, the singer urges fans to support restoration of the graffiti-covered architectural landmark, closed since 1992.
``It's a symbol of everything that's great about Florida -- boats, music, water and great Florida fun,'' a smiling Buffett says as a live version of Margaritaville from the stadium show plays in the background. ``The stadium deserves a future.''
The concert shots illustrate why the stadium, designed for speedboat racing, proved a memorable concert venue: A packed grandstand sways to the Coral Reefers, who play on a floating stage surrounded by anchored boats and mobs of people splashing in the water and bobbing on kayaks or inflatables.
Stadium supporters say snagging the support of the singer, a God-like figure to the multitudes of worshipers at the church of Buffett, took a year and represents a coup for their campaign.
``He is the single performer who is most identified with that stadium,'' said Don Worth, a founder of Friends of Miami Marine Stadium, which has been leading the preservation effort with Dade Heritage Trust. ``I like to think we proved ourselves to him. It's a huge credibility boost for us.''
The campaign won historic designation from the city for the stadium, which sits at the edge of a man-made water basin, and garnered worldwide attention for the grandstand and its dramatic folded-concrete roof, increasingly recognized as an architectural and engineering masterpiece.
But supporters recognize the financially strapped city is unlikely to foot the cost of restoring and operating the stadium by itself.
With the city's agreement, the World Monuments Fund has commissioned a privately-funded, $50,000 engineering study of the stadium to determine its structural condition and the extent of needed repairs, Worth said. The study is scheduled to begin this week.
The group's fondest wish: ``To have Jimmy Buffett at the Marine Stadium again,'' said Dade Heritage Trust Director Becky Roper Matkov.
Is Jimmy game? Sure sounds like it.
``We had a great time at the marine stadium,'' he says in the spot. ``Let's do it again.''
The Miami Herald
