Inter Miami CF Stadium

About Inter Miami CF Stadium

Ten months. That was the window Inter Miami had to level the derelict Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale and raise a professional soccer ground in its place before the club’s first MLS season came around. What went up on that greyhound-track site was never meant to last. David Beckham’s ownership group built it as a stopgap, a functional 18,000-seat ground designed by MANICA Architecture for roughly $60 million, while the long fight for a permanent stadium ground on through Miami’s zoning courts. It opened in July 2020. For its first three years, almost nobody outside South Florida knew its name.

Then Lionel Messi signed. His debut on July 21, 2023, a stoppage-time free kick to beat Cruz Azul, turned an anonymous MLS venue into one of the most sought-after tickets in world sport overnight. The club bolted on corner sections to push capacity from around 18,000 to 21,550, expanded the press box, and still could not come close to meeting demand. By 2024 the ground carried the name most people know it by, Chase Stadium, after JPMorgan Chase bought the rights. Palm trees, pink neon, thick summer humidity, and the best player alive on the pitch. There was nothing else quite like it in American soccer.

The trophies came fast. Weeks after Messi arrived the club won the 2023 Leagues Cup, then took the 2024 Supporters’ Shield with a record 74 points, and finally lifted the 2025 MLS Cup on home turf, the club’s first league championship. That December final doubled as the venue’s farewell. Inter Miami’s first team had already committed to a permanent home in Miami, and the Fort Lauderdale ground had done its job.

For 2026 the club moved out. The first team now plays at Nu Stadium in Miami, the Chase naming deal lapsed, and the venue quietly reverted to its original name, Inter Miami CF Stadium. It has not gone dark. The ground still hosts Inter Miami CF II in MLS Next Pro, anchors the club’s daily training campus, and books private events. A short, strange, brilliant run as Messi’s American home has already earned it a footnote in league history.

Getting to Inter Miami CF Stadium

Public Transit

Transit access here has always been thin. The best approach is Brightline rail to Fort Lauderdale station, then a short rideshare to the ground.

Most fans drive or take rideshare. South Florida’s car-first layout makes public transit impractical for the majority of visitors, and now that the first team plays in Miami, matchday crowds at the Fort Lauderdale ground are smaller than they were at the height of the Messi rush.

Driving + Parking

The stadium address is 1350 NW 55th Street, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309. I-95 and the Florida Turnpike are the primary approaches.

The campus has around 6,000 surface parking spaces at $25 for general parking and $40 to $60 for premium lots. Gates open 2 hours before kickoff. I-95 clogs before and after events, so leave extra time either way.

Rideshare

Uber and Lyft are the default for many fans. The designated drop-off zone is on NW 55th Street near the main entrance. From Fort Lauderdale hotels, expect $10 to $15. From Miami Beach, $30 to $45. Post-match surge pricing bites, so walk out to NW 12th Avenue and wait 10 minutes for rates to settle.

From the Airport

Construction & Design

Speed dictated everything about this building. The green light to demolish the old Lockhart Stadium did not come until the spring of 2019, and Inter Miami needed a working MLS ground by the start of the 2020 season. That left barely 10 months for design and construction, a timeline that would frighten most stadium projects into an early grave. MANICA Architecture answered it by breaking the ground into standardized, prefabricated pieces that could be cast off-site and dropped into place quickly. Function first, ornament later, if ever.

The economics were unusual too. The stadium itself came in around $60 million, with the wider development, which added the training campus and road upgrades, reported near $140 million. By the standards of a league where new grounds routinely run past half a billion dollars, that is pocket change. The reason was baked into the plan from day one: this was a temporary venue. The City of Fort Lauderdale owns the ground and leases it to the club, an arrangement approved in 2019 on a 50-year term, while the ownership group chased a permanent stadium 30 miles south in Miami.

The ground never stopped being a construction site, exactly. When Messi signed in 2023, crews bolted roughly 3,000 seats into the corners before he arrived and reworked the press box, growing it from 37 seats to 52 to handle a global media crush no one had planned for. Those additions, plus a further expansion in early 2024, pushed the headline capacity to 21,550. The stadium wraps a natural grass pitch, sits open to the South Florida sky, and shares its site with the Florida Blue Training Center, a roughly 34-acre campus holding a 50,000-square-foot training building and seven pitches, one synthetic and six natural grass.

The permanent home finally arrived for 2026. Nu Stadium at Miami Freedom Park, seating 26,700 in the Grapeland Heights neighborhood beside Miami International Airport, opened on April 4, 2026 with a home match against Austin FC. Designed by Arquitectonica with Manica, it carries the largest overhead canopy in MLS on a tensile cable roof built to hurricane codes, and a stand named for Messi. The stadium alone cost a reported $350 million, part of a campus pushing $1 billion. Naming rights went to the Brazilian fintech Nu in March 2026. Fort Lauderdale, by contrast, cost less than a fifth of that and went up in under a year. Both facts tell you what the Chase Stadium era really was.

History of Inter Miami CF Stadium

Inter Miami existed on paper for years before it had anywhere to play. Beckham’s group secured an MLS franchise in 2018 after a long negotiation, but its preferred Miami stadium site was tangled in zoning and political fights. Rather than delay the club’s launch, the ownership pivoted north to Fort Lauderdale, took over the Lockhart Stadium site, and built fast. The old ground came down in May 2019. The new one opened in July 2020.

The pandemic robbed the venue of a normal debut. Inter Miami’s first MLS home match there, on August 22, 2020, was played behind closed doors, a 3-2 win over Orlando City heard by no one in the stands. Fans did not get in until April 18, 2021, a 3-2 loss to the LA Galaxy. For two seasons the ground sat where it belonged in the American soccer landscape: a tidy, anonymous MLS venue for a middling expansion club.

Everything changed in the summer of 2023. Messi chose Miami over a return to Barcelona or a payday in Saudi Arabia, and his debut on July 21 became one of those sporting moments people remember exactly where they watched. Off the bench against Cruz Azul, a free kick from distance, a winner deep in stoppage time. The club rode the wave to the 2023 Leagues Cup, its first trophy of any kind. A year later, with Luis Suarez, Sergio Busquets, and Jordi Alba alongside Messi, Inter Miami won the 2024 Supporters’ Shield with a record 74 points, the best regular-season haul in MLS history. Then came the crown: the 2025 MLS Cup, won 3-1 over the Vancouver Whitecaps on December 6, 2025, the club’s first league title and the last big night the Fort Lauderdale ground would host as a top-flight home.

The name changed almost as often as the fortunes on the pitch. It opened as Inter Miami CF Stadium, became DRV PNK Stadium in 2021 under an AutoNation deal, then Chase Stadium in February 2024 when JPMorgan Chase bought the rights. When the first team decamped to Miami’s Nu Stadium for 2026 and the Chase agreement expired, the ground circled back to where it started and became Inter Miami CF Stadium once more. Four names in six years, for a place that was only ever supposed to be a waiting room.

It is not finished being useful. The venue now stages Inter Miami CF II in MLS Next Pro, remains the first team’s practice base at the Florida Blue Training Center, and rents out as an event space. No MLS ground has packed more history into a shorter, stranger life. Built in 10 months, made globally famous by one signing, and handed the club’s first league title on its way out the door.

Sources & Further Reading

• Inter Miami CF official facilities page: intermiamicf.com. Club description of the Fort Lauderdale venue, its current event-space role, and the move to the permanent Miami home.
• Wikipedia entry on the venue: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Stadium. Capacity history, naming timeline, opening and construction dates, and ownership details.
• MLSSoccer coverage of the new Miami home: mlssoccer.com. Nu Stadium naming, capacity, opening date, and the club’s departure from Fort Lauderdale.
• Yahoo Sports profile of the move: sports.yahoo.com. Location, capacity, cost, architects, and April 4, 2026 opening of Nu Stadium at Miami Freedom Park.