As FIU fades, push for a Trump presidential library shifts to downtown Miami
Could Miami's Freedom Tower have a MAGA tourist attraction as a neighbor?
Eric Trump, the presidential son helping vet sites for his father's future library, earlier this year visited parking lots next to the historic building in downtown Miami as part of the vetting process for potential sites, a Trump Organization lawyer said.
Multiple sources said the land on Biscayne Boulevard, owned by Miami Dade College, is being eyed as a potential library site — with enough space to display the Boeing 747 jet that President Donald Trump secured for free from Qatar and may want to be a star feature of his post-presidential center.
Miami Dade College also owns the Freedom Tower, an iconic building that once welcomed Cubans fleeing the Fidel Castro dictatorship. Representatives of the school were not available for comment Thursday.
While Trump's Miami backers are trying to woo the library their way, the president himself appears to have a favorite site about 45 miles away. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Trump's team is close to an agreement to build his presidential library on free land provided by Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Sources familiar with the Miami push confirm that FAU looks like the preferred choice, and there's an effort to pitch the downtown site as a satellite location aimed at Miami's steady stream of vacationers and business travelers.
'It's going to be smaller and more of a tourist attraction,' one source familiar with the plan said.
But a Miami lawyer representing Trump's resort business said he sees the two-acre Miami Dade College site between Northeast Fifth Street and Northeast Sixth Street as still viable for the main library.
'In my opinion, the Miami Dade College property is the most impressive site for a presidential library,' said Felix Lasarte, the Miami lawyer Trump hired to help secure zoning approval for an expansion of the Trump National Doral golf resort after he left office in 2021. 'It would become an iconic library instantly.'
Lasarte said he has remained in touch with Trump after the 2024 election but works mostly with the Trump Organization as its Miami lawyer.
The leading position for FAU reflects what multiple sources say is the increasingly fading position for Florida International University, the other state school on the short list of potential Trump library sites.
The Miami Herald reported in January that FAU in Palm Beach County was considered the Trump favorite, with FIU hoping to convince the president's camp that Miami-Dade County's global appeal, proximity to the Trump Doral resort and newly red politics made FIU the better pick. In November, Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to win Miami-Dade since 1988, beating Kamala Harris by 11 points. Palm Beach County remained blue, with Harris beating Trump by less than a point. Eric Trump has also visited FIU as part of the library hunt, Lasarte said.
But FAU sits less than 25 miles from Trump's home at the private club he owns in Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago. Miami is about a 70-mile drive from the palatial oceanfront property.
FIU representatives were not available for comment on Thursday. Lasarte said he's been pitching FIU as a good option — including the potential for a library on the school's waterfront campus north of Miami. 'Obviously, a site at FIU would be great, too,' he said.
So far, the known potential sites for a Trump library are owned by schools under state control, meaning Gov. Ron DeSantis would be playing the role of land benefactor if the Trump camp lands a deal before the term-limited governor exits in 2026.
An FAU spokesperson was not available for comment Thursday.
If Miami Dade College would try to match FAU with free land, a Trump library would mean giving up potential development profits for the commuter school. The parking lots by the Freedom Tower sit across from the new $6 billion Miami Worldcenter retail complex in the heart of downtown Miami.
A Trump library downtown would also bring a tribute to a president presiding over a massive deportation effort next to an iconic structure linked to Miami's historic embrace of immigrants. One of Miami's first skyscrapers, the building served as the Cuban Refugee Center in the 1960s and '70s.
Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature has been trying to coax Trump, a longtime New Yorker who's now a Florida resident, into building his library in the Sunshine State. Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a law barring local governments from passing ordinances to restrict presidential libraries, making the state the entity that would have authority over a future Trump library.
'The entire intent behind the bill was really to try and roll out the welcome mat for Florida's first presidential library,' said state Sen. Jason Brodeur, a Republican from Central Florida and the bill's sponsor.
Should the downtown Miami site win Trump's favor, the resulting building in the city's downtown would likely be far taller than what would be built at FAU, a suburban campus next to the Boca Raton Airport.
As Lasarte envisions it, a downtown Miami Trump library would rise up south of the Freedom Tower. While he declined to get into the specifics of the kind of structure being pitched for the location, Lasarte said the design would accommodate a presidential plane if Trump can take it with him when he leaves office.
'I think you can fit an Air Force One on that site,' he said.
Miami Herald staff writer Garrett Shanley contributed to this report.
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