Riccardo Silva Stadium

Riccardo Silva Stadium is a college football and soccer stadium on the campus of Florida International University (FIU) in University Park, Florida. It is home stadium of the FIU Panthers football team and the Miami FC soccer team from the USL Championship. The stadium opened in 1995 and has a seating capacity of 20,000.

History

FIU Community Stadium

FIU Community Stadium was the first dedicated sports facility at the school, replacing Tamiami Field. Construction officially began on July 24, 1994, and the facility opened on September 24, 1995, as a 7,500-seat football and track stadium. It was built as a joint venture between FIU, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Miami-Dade Parks, and the Miami-Dade County Youth Fair. In anticipation of the inaugural FIU Golden Panthers football season in fall 2002, the university placed movable bleachers around the stadium's all-weather running track in 2001, which increased the stadium's capacity to 17,000 seats.

Renovation

In 2007, the university announced a major expansion and redesign for FIU Stadium. The redesign of FIU Stadium would increase the stadium's capacity to 45,000 fans, to be built in phases. For the first phase of the expansion, the school demolished a large portion of the original 1995 stadium. The west, south and east sides of FIU Stadium were taken down and construction began on the new, permanent stadium. The expansion was completed in September 2008 for the 2008 football season. Phase one increased the stadium's capacity from 17,000 fans to 18,000, including 1,500 club seats. During construction, the 2007 FIU Golden Panthers football team played its home games in the Miami Orange Bowl.

The new facility opened for the first home game of the 2008 football season against the South Florida Bulls on September 20.