Trump to build high-rise library 'visible for miles' after state gifts Miami land

Alexandra Glorioso and Claire Heddles, Miami Herald on Sep 30, 2025

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MIAMI — Donald Trump will build a high-rise tower in downtown Miami, his son announced Tuesday after Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet voted to give his presidential library foundation valuable public land next to Miami’s Freedom tower.

“Once completed, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library will be visible for miles into the Atlantic, a bold landmark on Miami’s skyline,” Eric Trump said in a statement. The president chose the location formerly owned by Miami Dade College after his team toured multiple sites in Florida, according to the foundation.

The acquisition of the 2.6-acre site at the gateway to PortMiami is a relative coup for the president, whose team has discussed building a hotel to go with his library.

Where other developers tried and failed to get the college to let them develop the property over the past two decades, Trump’s team got the land for free without providing site plans, renderings or any public debate.

“It’s one of the most important skyscraper sites left in downtown Miami,” said developer Gregg Covin, who has previously pitched developments on the land to Miami Dade College. The property is valued around $67 million by the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser, but Covin guessed it is probably worth between $200 million and $300 million on the open market.

The only restriction on the land transfer is that the president’s team begins work on “a Presidential library, museum, and/or center” within five years, leaving the door open for a wide scope of options.

Efforts to scout and acquire the property played out quietly for months, with only some details of the discussions leaking out. The efforts were so secretive that not even the Miami Dade College Board of Trustees had received information about what the land would be used for ahead of a vote last week to give up the property, according to the vice chairman and records provided by the college that show no details were sent to board members.

On Tuesday, at least two of the four Florida Cabinet members who voted to convey the land to Trump’s presidential library foundation said after the vote that they had not discussed the project with anyone from the president’s administration and did not know the details of the plans.

“What we voted on today was to allow that library to be put there,” Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson told the Herald/Times after the vote. “If there’s other amenities that go along with that, well, so be it.” Even though the property no longer belongs to the college, state leaders and the president’s library foundation insist the land transfer will be a win for students.

“It’s great for Miami Dade College,” Attorney General James Uthmeier said. “I think it’ll provide a lot of nice opportunities for partnerships and their students to find employment and other education opportunities.”

On social media, Eric Trump, one of the trustees of the president’s library foundation, said DeSantis and Uthmeier had been “incredible partners in this endeavor.” Neither provided information about the project following Tuesday’s vote, with Uthmeier telling a Herald/Times reporter to send questions to his spokesperson.

A presidential library in downtown could be an economic engine in Miami and driver for tourism, supporters have argued. But there’s also been local backlash over the plan to memorialize a president who’s made mass deportations a key part of his agenda in a complex adjacent to the Freedom Tower and so-called “Ellis Island of the South,” which served as a refugee center for Cuban asylum seekers.

Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia — who has been auditing local government spending in a statewide effort inspired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — waived away any criticism that the free land deal was political.

“It’s hogwash,” Ingoglia told reporters after the vote. “People do not like the fact that President Trump is standing up fiercely for the American people. And they’re just going to push back.”

Ingoglia said he first learned about the deal by reading media reports, had not discussed it with anyone from the president’s administration and had not seen any plans for what would be built there. He said he didn’t “have any information” on what Miami Dade College would get in return for giving the land to Trump’s presidential foundation, if anything.

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