The 23,000-sq.-ft. Xfinity East Plaza at AmericanAirlines Arena, Miami.
With the Jan. 31 opening of the Xfinity East Plaza outside AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami, the venue accomplished two of the main drivers in today’s facility world – utilization of space and a new revenue stream.
The 19,600-seat arena, home to the NBA’s Miami Heat, opened New Year’s Eve 1999 and,- since that time, had an outdoor space on the east side of the building that had plenty of planters and a remarkable view of Biscayne Bay and the city skyline but nothing more.
All that changed with the opening of the Xfinity East Plaza, a 23,000-sq.-foot outdoor space that is covered by a solar canopy and features 14 translucent solar panels, which utilize Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) solar technology to allow for the offset of energy consumption and adequately deals with the extremes of the city’s heat and rain. The space was previously uncovered and underutilized primarily because of Miami’s year-round sun and rain, but is now an environmentally friendly, technologically sophisticated and fully functional entertainment space able to handle crowds of up to 3,000.
John Vidalin serves as executive vice president and chief revenue officer for the Heat and had a grasp on how to utilize the space when he came to the team more than two years ago after working on a similar solar canopy project as part of the opening of Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. and home to the San Francisco 49ers.
“When I interviewed with Eric Woolworth (president of the Heat Group’s business operations), he said, ‘Boy, if we could get this space covered it would be a real win.” Vidalin said. “We started talking about some of the history I had with NRG Energy when I worked with the Houston Texans and then the ‘Niners project and went from there.
“We started looking at what was a natural fit and what kind of authentic extension we could have on the property. I started working with NRG and, next thing you know, we developed this really cool, really stylized elegant solution to cover that
space to create a whole new extension to our concourse and tell the story of our LEED certification.”
Vidalin said that AmericanAirlines Arena has been recertified as a LEED Gold certified venue, the first arena in the world to enjoy recertification status.
“Long story short is the Xfinity East Plaza became a really nice extension of our LEED certification, of our ability to activate the concourse outside and gave us a whole new platform for technology innovation,” Vidalin said. “We wanted to look at how we could make the space not just usable but really cool and different. Xfinity jumped on that and for the first time Xfinity Wi-Fi Internet access is available for free on the plaza for the public. We kind of led with the technology and sustainability.”
Vidalin said that Xfinity is the entitlement partner of the east plaza as part of a multiyear deal, but that the terms are proprietary. NRG and Bacardi are other partners in the space.
Open before, during and after Heat games, the space sits on the main 100-level concourse and has two gates feeding it. Guests can enjoy cocktails at the Bacardi Bar, food from local eateries Pincho Factory and Philly Cheesesteaks, live music and/or entertainment, a variety of seating options, three The Miami Heat Store retail kiosks and much more.
“From top to bottom, the solar canopy was kind of the catalyst for this whole thing because it really was a nice extension of our LEED Gold certification,” Vidalin said. “The space itself overlooking the water is very Miami, but another big driver was the Wi-Fi, because there’s really nowhere in the building for fans to get Wi-Fi and that’s a big driver for fans nowadays.”
In collaboration with Comcast Florida, that is no longer an issue.
“Individuals now have a large space where they can go outside and do things on their phones or tablets and enjoy the freedom of not knocking elbows with somebody inside the arena,” said David Vickery, director of broadcast services for The Heat Group. “Comcast put in a really big pipe, as we like to call it. It was an opportunity for Comcast Xfinity to showcase for their clients, who may want a similar type of feature at their home, just what they can do with this high-speed bandwidth and the ability to do multiple devices over the same Wi-Fi structure.”
Vickery said that working with technology in the open air aspect of the plaza’s huge canopy was a challenge.
“It has no side walls so we have to contend with filtered light from the daylight and then of course any other ambient elements there may be in the evening,” he said. “We are about 200 yards from salt water so we weatherize our outdoor equipment to take the elements thrown at it. We spent a lot of time researching that.”
Vickery said that positive reviews came in during the first week of the plaza, that everyone is happy with the look of the LED products and that the sound system is so good that it is often too loud and has had to be turned down. The venue has a 720-sq.-ft., bilevel performance stage outfitted with unique LED lighting as well as a special effects lighting truss and a 70,000-watt audio system. Five NanoLumens—360-degree LED cylinder technology—deliver clear imagery into the plaza.
“Our staging and lighting was an interesting challenge in the sense of trying to figure out what might work best for the outdoor plaza,” Vickery said. “It’s very large. We’re trying to create a performance area around the main video display board against the building and seem to have come off with a pretty good design that fits the space well and the backdrop of the video board.
“One of the things we geared for was a lot of flexibility. We sort of walked into this cold in the sense that we’re trying to figure out how to program from a performance marketing show standpoint and trying a lot of different acts, a lot of different looks and a lot of different perspectives to see what’s received best by fans and others alike.”
Both Vidalin and Vickery said that they will reassess the space’s performance in a few months and make any necessary adjustments going forward.
“Between the partnerships and the group sales potential and food and beverage and merchandise we’ve programmed out there and then just the space rental as well … we’re going to walk before we run and see where we net out after year one and reassess and see what’s working,” Vidalin said. “So far it’s been a really nice win.”
“As far as the limitations of the technology gear I don’t think we are even close to hitting the limits of what we can do,” Vickery added.
Social media will do its part to get the word out about the Xfinity East Plaza. The space was not fully promoted until it opened.
“We wanted to make sure we got this project right,” said Lorenzo Butler, manager, The Heat Group Business Communications. “It’s a unique project. We wanted to make sure we could focus on the construction aspect of things and that all the elements were right before we could present it to the general public.”
Butler said that once fans saw the extra element of the plaza curiosity took over and word quickly got out as people used their phones to take pictures, selfies and shoot videos to share.
“They really did the promotion for us because we had a soft opening on Jan.19 that was really well received,” he said. “Our social media department is incredibly strong. We are among the leaders in professional sports in terms of following on social media.”
Interviewed for this article: John Vidalin, (786) 777-1000; David Vickery, (786) 777-1000; Lorenzo Butler, (786) 777-4137