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Florida officials on Tuesday paved the way for President Donald Trump’s presidential library to be built in a prime location in downtown Miami next to the city’s iconic Freedom Tower.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet voted to gift a 2.63-acre parcel on Biscayne Boulevard to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation on condition that construction must begin within five years, which would be about a year after the president completes his second term.
Trump’s son Eric, who is the president and one of three trustees at the foundation, hailed the announcement.
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“No monument can fully capture the scale of my father’s legacy, but this library will stand as a tribute to the leader who reshaped history and restored America’s strength,” Eric Trump said in a statement.
No architectural plans have been released, but Eric Trump said it would not look like former President Barack Obama’s presidential center, which is slowly rising in Chicago.
“Consistent with our family’s DNA, this will be one of the most beautiful buildings ever built, an icon on the Miami skyline — rest assured, it will not look like President Obama’s ‘prison-like structure,’” Eric Trump wrote on X, referring to the Obama Center’s 235-foot-tall concrete museum at the site. At 19.3 acres, the Obama Presidential Center sits on a site more than seven times larger than Trump’s.
The Miami site is currently used as an employee parking lot for Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus and is adjacent to the historic Freedom Tower, which served as a resource center for hundreds of thousands of Cubans who fled communism in the 1960s and 1970s and sought asylum in the United States. The 100-year-old structure is considered a symbol of the city’s vibrant immigrant heritage.
The site is surrounded by luxury high-rise apartment buildings and has waterfront views, facing directly at the Kaseya Center, home to the NBA’s Miami Heat, as well as Dodge Island, where many of the world’s largest cruise liners dock.
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The parcel was appraised at more than $66 million, according to media reports, but it could sell for at least $360 million, The New York Times reported, citing a real estate consultant.
Presidential libraries are part of a system administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which preserves documents, records and other historical materials of U.S. presidents after they leave office.
According to the NARA website, the records of the Trump administration will remain in the capital region, which likely means the Miami site will function more like a museum and exhibit center akin to the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. Fox News Digital has sought clarification from the Trump Presidential Library Foundation.
The site selection comes just months after Trump carried Miami-Dade County by 13 points, the first Republican to carry it since 1988.
DeSantis formally presented the plan and publicly backed it, stating ahead of the vote that Florida “would be honored” to house Trump’s presidential library and arguing it would provide a “greater benefit to the public” and “increase economic development activities.”
Under the state constitution, the gifting of certain state properties requires approval by a collective decision-making body comprised of the attorney general, the chief financial officer and the commissioner of agriculture as well as the governor.
Locations associated with Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and Florida International University in suburban Miami had previously been floated as potential library sites. DeSantis signed a bill this year preempting local governments from blocking development of a presidential library, aiming to overrule potential opposition in liberal-leaning counties or municipalities.
The Trump Presidential Library Foundation’s other trustees are Tiffany Trump’s husband Michael Boulos and Trump attorney James Kiley.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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