Florida’s top state officials, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, approved conveying a parking lot next to Miami’s Freedom Tower for a Donald Trump presidential library.
As board members of the state’s Internal Improvement Trust Fund, DeSantis, Attorney General James Uthmeier, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson voted unanimously to deed the 2.6-acre parcel at 500-540 Biscayne Boulevard for the project, according to a press release. The project could include a hotel, published reports state.
Last week, the Miami Dade College board of trustees voted to give the land to the state, which set up Tuesday’s vote by DeSantis and the three cabinet members. In 2004, the college paid $25 million for the property, and two previous attempts to develop the site fell through. The parking lot is currently used by college employees.
Miami-Dade College also owns Freedom Tower, arguably downtown Miami’s most iconic historic building that recently reopened following a $25 million renovation. Built in 1925, the 17-story Spanish Renaissance Revival high-rise served as a refugee center for Cuban immigrants in the 1960s and 1970s.
“Having the Trump Presidential Library in Miami will be good for Florida, for the city, and for Miami Dade College,” DeSantis said in a statement. The project would be the first presidential library established in Florida.
Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, maintains his primary residence at his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach. Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons who co-leads New York-based The Trump Organization, said the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation is committed to building the presidential library at the site next to Freedom Tower.
“It will be the greatest Presidential Library ever built, honoring the greatest President our Nation has ever known,” Eric Trump wrote on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk. “This will be one of the most beautiful buildings ever built, an Icon on the Miami skyline.”
