RARE AIR

Designing a roof for the Miami Dolphins stadium

Many stadiums in the NFL have roofs or domes, why don’t we? So Lenny and I got to designing. I would spend late nights with my older cousin drawing the architectural plans for a roofing structure over Dolphin Stadium. We recruited some of the top firms in the industry to join our team in this venture. Walter P. Moore engineering was first. They have most recently designed the Dallas Cowboys AT&T stadium, and the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers SoFi Stadium. This was a huge win for us.

Next was Unisystems and BirdAir, companies that specialized in automated retraction systems and weather resistant teflon fabric, respectively. We wanted the roof to open ended on each side, block the rain but let in light, and be retractable for sunny days. We ended up getting a meeting with the owner of the Miami Dolphins, the late Wayne Huizenga, to present our plan.

Wayne is famous for starting Waste Management, Blockbuster, and Autonation, three Fortune 500 companies. He loved the idea, and passed us to his Chief Operating Officer of the Miami Dolphins. Ultimately he sold the team the next year, and wasn’t trying to invest more capital into the stadium. The next owner, Steven Ross, ended up making major renovation in the following years, including building a roof with other contractors.

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