The John Ruiz family is ready to embark on an ambitious plan to build a football stadium for UM in Coral Gables

Almost ten days ago, billionaire John Ruiz, a billionaire at the University of Miami, made it clear that he and his family were ready to “essentially” support the UM sports division.

Ruiz didn’t reveal any details in this interview with InsideTheU, but according to a knowing source, Ruiz and his family will take responsibility and launch an ambitious plan for UM to essentially have a football stadium on campus.

The source says Ruiz, attorney, entrepreneur, and founder of a company called MSP Recovery, which Forbes.com claims is valued at over $ 20 billion, is envisioning a 50,000-seat stadium on Coral Gables high school grounds .

The source says Ruiz is currently exploring other locations to build a new Coral Gables High School before starting the stadium project.

The current location of Coral Gables High School is 15 acres on the corner of Bird Road and Le Jeune Rd. It is less than 2 miles from the University of Miami campus. A stadium with 50,000 seats typically requires 13 hectares of land.

The source says the Ruiz family already owns an acre of land across from Havana Harry’s Restaurant, which is on Le Jeune Road. in Coral Gables, and the vision for this property could be an eight story garage for additional parking.

The Hurricanes currently play their home games at Hard Rock Stadium, a facility owned by Stephen Ross of the Miami Dolphins. The drive from UM campus to Hard Rock Stadium takes 21-26 miles, depending on the route.

Ruiz and his three children, Johnny, Alex and Cristy, who are all UM alums, plan to fund the entire project for the university, which, according to a source, would cost between $ 350 million and $ 400 million.

The Ruiz family values ​​the UM sports department very much. Johnny and Alex were former members of the UM baseball team, and Cristy is a former Sunsation.

The vision is for the stadium to be a state of the art facility with lots of technology to make the experience enjoyable, along with high quality suites for boosters.

While the town of Coral Gables has a reputation for making these types of large-scale projects difficult to carry out, Ruiz is confident that the trust he has built within the leadership of the community will help him get the project off the ground.

The source says he can’t envision breaking ground for this stadium until late 2022 at the earliest, provided the process leading up to that – finding a new location for Coral Gables High School and getting approval from the city – goes smoothly.

Ruiz, the son of Cuban immigrants, is related through a marriage to Oregon coach Mario Cristobal.

The post The John Ruiz family is ready to embark on an ambitious plan to build a football stadium for UM in Coral Gables first appeared on Daily Florida Press.

from Daily Florida Press https://dailyfloridapress.com/the-john-ruiz-family-is-ready-to-embark-on-an-ambitious-plan-to-build-a-football-stadium-for-um-in-coral-gables/