What's next for Trump's Miami high-rise presidential library?

MIAMI — Donald Trump’s planned presidential library in Downtown Miami is already breaking norms — after a lightning-quick land deal, discussions of a hotel on-site and an unusual early source of funds from lawsuit settlements.

Since the state of Florida only had one requirement in the land transfer — that construction begin within five years — Trump’s team still has all kinds of options on the table for the site.

The foundation spearheading the project — led by Trump’s son Eric Trump, son-in-law Michael Boulos and longtime attorney James Kiley — have said the high-rise legacy project will be “visible for miles into the Atlantic” and “a bold landmark on Miami’s skyline.”

The land the state gifted to Trump’s foundation this week, adjacent to the historic Freedom Tower and across from PortMiami on Biscayne Boulevard, is particularly attractive for commercial development

“This is like the mac daddy development site from a profitability perspective,” Miami condo analyst Peter Zalewski said, pointing to special zoning advantages.

Whether and how Trump might capitalize on those perks remains to be seen. The state did not put any restrictions on the nonprofit foundation from selling or transferring the land, according to the agreement.

Here’s what to know as the project moves forward:

Will the public get to weigh in?

Miami Dade College transferred the land to the state last week without public debate, discussion or a public announcement about the plans for the land. Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet then turned around and transferred the land to Trump’s foundation for the presidential library a week later, also without any debate.

After the quick and secretive process, there are likely few opportunities Miamians will have to formally weigh in on the development plans. A new state law enacted this summer also prevents local governments from passing any rules or ordinances about presidential libraries.

Past presidential libraries have had long, drawn-out public fights over land allocation — in the case of Barack Obama’s presidential library in Chicago, the debates resulted in a formal community benefits agreement.

Based on the current zoning for the land given to Trump’s library foundation, a developer can build 1,000 units per acre and is not required to build residential parking on that land without having to go through a public notice and comment period, according to zoning expert Anne-Christine Carrie.

But she added therre are still too many unknowns about the Trump team’s plans to know definitively whether there will be another opportunity for public comment. It all comes down to what the team wants to build, and what exemptions they might need from current zoning requirements.

What hurdles might the project face?

In many ways, this land is a developer’s dream.

“This site, you don’t have to build parking and you get a thousand units per acre. So this thing is like, boy, ring the bell, cash in all day long,” Zawleski said.

He estimated, at market rates, a condo building on the site would have a sell-off value of more than $5 billion.

There is just one clear hurdle zoning experts pointed to. Since the plot is in what’s called a “high-probability” archaeological conservation area downtown, Trump’s team will have to do an archaeological review before they can build anything on the site. That process could slow down the project, Carrie, the zoning expert said, depending on what they find. But, longtime archaeologist Miami Bob Carr added that it’s highly unlikely to actually halt any development.

“It does not impede or stop any proposed use of the property, all it does is set up the mechanism that provides for the documentation of what might be there as part of the development process,” he said.

Who’s funding it?

Even with the free land and public perks cities and states usually offer, presidential libraries are yearslong, enormously expensive endeavors, so there’s a long road ahead for their promised Miami Trumplandia. Construction of Obama’s library has already surpassed $600 million, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Thus far, not counting the likely in-kind land donation from Florida, the largest known donations to Trump’s presidential library amount to more than $50 million from settlements with the ABC network, Paramount and Meta in lawsuits Trump filed against them.

“Mandatory donations or whatever you call them from media companies, like Meta and others, to the presidential library — that’s unprecedented,” Benjamin Hufbauer, who studies presidential libraries said. “Nothing like that has happened before.”

A newly launched presidential library website also started publicly soliciting donations for Trump’s legacy project.

Presidential libraries are one of the few ways a sitting president can solicit unlimited donations, including from foreign donors and governments, without having to disclose their source — so the full list of donors may never be public.

In the past, Republicans have called this fact a glaring loophole in public disclosure requirements. A bill passed the House in 2019 that would have required presidential library foundations to disclose their donors, but it did not advance in the Senate. Two Florida congressmen, Republican Rep. Greg Steube and Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, reintroduced a similar bill last session.

“Americans deserve assurance that presidents won’t be ‘bought and sold’ before leaving office, particularly as they still hold immense international power and influence over U.S. policy,” Steube said at the time, while President Joe Biden was still in office. Democrats reintroduced a similar bill this session, but no Republicans joined. Steube’s office did not respond to a request for comment about why he didn’t sign on again.

What will Miami Dade College get out of it?

There were no explicit provisions or agreements with the college in either the land deal transferring the plot from college ownership to the state or the deal transferring the property from the state to Trump’s library foundation.

But state leaders have insisted the project will benefit students. Attorney General James Uthmeier has said it will lead to jobs and education opportunities. DeSantis touted the fact that it’s the first presidential library linked to a community college.

And when Trump’s foundation announced it planned to build a high-rise in Miami, it prominently highlighted the school, announcing, “Miami Dade College Selected As Official Location of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library” — even though the land no longer belongs to the college.

The college has said little publicly about the presidential library, even after this week’s announcement by Trump’s foundation. After the college’s Board of Trustees gave away the land last week, president Madeline Pumariega said in a short interview with the Miami Herald that a presidential library on the site would be “historic.”

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