When Formula One came to Miami, it needed a home that could match its global prestige without losing the city it landed in. The race had to feel as much like Miami as it does like F1.
Following the success of the Miami Open tennis tournament, the Hard Rock Stadium campus was ready for its next global event. The Paddock Club on the Hard Rock Stadium campus, designed by ROSSETTI, now part of HOK, has been delivered in stages, developed in continued partnership with the Miami Dolphins: a temporary buildout for the 2022 inaugural race, a permanent three-story Paddock Club in 2023 and a 115,000-sq.-ft. expansion overlooking Turn 1, opening for the 2027 race.
Design Solutions
The project started with a question bigger than the racetrack: what does a Formula One weekend feel like when it happens in Miami? Modern motorsports events are about more than the race, so the design had to deliver F1’s operational and hospitality standards while still letting Miami come through, from the color and energy of the grounds to the way the whole campus reads to a fan walking it. Building on Formula One’s master plan, the design team used precedent imagery, renderings and animation to shape a visual identity for the event early, building stakeholder alignment and informing how temporary and permanent structures would be choreographed across the campus. Around the 5.41-kilometer, 19-corner circuit designed by Apex Circuit Design, the architects shaped the Paddock Club and the campus hospitality and operations that support the race weekend.
The Paddock Club is the centerpiece. For the inaugural 2022 race, the team designed it as a temporary structure. In 2023, a permanent three-story building replaced it, constructed above the team garages. The 190,000-sq.-ft. building hosts more than 6,000 guests across private suites, lounges and a rooftop club, with a four-story decorative element marking the main entry and a grand staircase that sets up a clear arrival sequence. Rockwell Group led the interior design, balancing F1’s international prestige with Miami’s energy and cultural identity.
The Paddock Club is built to work with the stadium, not next to it. Bridges at each level connect it directly to Hard Rock Stadium’s kitchens and back-of-house spaces, so service moves efficiently without consuming premium guest-facing square footage. The result is a hospitality destination that operates like an extension of the stadium it sits next to.
The next phase replaces temporary structures with permanent ones. Announced in 2026 for the 2027 race, a 115,000-sq.-ft. extension takes over the site of the Vista Club, a temporary structure put up and taken down each year. The building stretches from the start/finish straight toward Turn 1, giving guests a view of the cars charging off the grid and through the opening corner, with sightlines onto Turns 2 and 3. Sections of the three-story suite addition will introduce tiered seating within the luxury hospitality setting, with improved ingress and egress easing guest movement across race weekend. Including the rooftop, the total expanded Paddock Club will reach about 305,000 square feet of hospitality space and roughly 9,200 guest capacity, among the largest on the Formula One calendar.
The expansion also gives the Precision Drive Club a permanent year-round home, with interiors designed by Rockwell Group. The Autodrome’s inner-loop track configurations let the circuit operate year-round without closing the public roads around Hard Rock Stadium, and the 37 team garages used during race weekend become member car storage the rest of the year. The members’ club, launched in 2024, anchors the expansion’s year-round program.
Impact
The Miami Grand Prix has become a long-term anchor for the Hard Rock Stadium campus. The 2024 race drew a circuit-record 275,000 fans across the weekend and 3.1 million U.S. television viewers, the largest stateside F1 audience on record. Across its first three years, the Grand Prix delivered more than $1 billion in economic impact to South Florida. On the strength of that momentum, South Florida Motorsports extended its agreement with Formula One through 2041, locking in a 20-year run that was the longest on the calendar when it was signed. SFM has been named Formula 1 Promoter of the Year for 2024. The 2027 Paddock Club expansion meets that demand.
The payoff reaches beyond Formula One. The same campus investments that strengthened Hard Rock Stadium’s global profile contributed to its selection as a host venue for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. It’s the latest in a long run of ROSSETTI and HOK work for the Miami Dolphins on the campus, from the Miami Open to the Baptist Health Training Complex and a series of stadium upgrades.
Originally designed by ROSSETTI, which joined HOK in 2026.