MIAMI — Miami Dade College set the stage Tuesday morning for Donald Trump’s presidential library to rise next to Miami’s iconic Freedom Tower when trustees voted to transfer a downtown parking lot to the state — a precursor to dedicating the land to the president’s legacy project.

The vote — taken during a lightning-quick meeting without specifying the property or the reason for the transfer — was immediately followed by an announcement from Attorney General James Uthmeier that the state would dedicate the land to Trump’s library.

“Next week, the Florida Cabinet will vote to dedicate land at Miami Dade College to house the Presidential Library of Donald J. Trump,” Uthmeier wrote on X Tuesday morning after the college’s vote. “I’ll be voting yes!”

The state vote is scheduled for Sept. 30.

Trump’s immigration crackdown notwithstanding, the state is pitching the location as a “symbol of freedom,” in light of the Freedom Tower’s history welcoming Cuban asylum-seekers in the 1960s and 1970s. “I can think of no better location to tell the story of Donald Trump,” Uthmeier said in a dramatized promotional video.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The location, according to the state, offers Trump 2.6 acres of prime property in downtown Miami, across the street from Bayside Marketplace and PortMiami, and at the entrance to the college’s Wolfson Campus. Miami Dade College President Madeline Pumariega said during a brief interview that hosting the library would be “historic” for the college, which just completed a $25 million renovation of the Freedom Tower.

Roberto Alonso, vice chairman of the Board of Trustees, said before the meeting that the library “would really take Miami to the next level.” He added that his parents were once welcomed at the Freedom Tower.

Trump had previously been leaning toward Florida Atlantic University as his preferred library location, the Miami Herald reported in January. Florida International University was also trying to persuade the president to place the library on its west Miami-Dade campus earlier this year. Eric Trump, the presidential son helping vet sites for his father’s future library, visited parking lots next to the Freedom Tower as part of the vetting process for potential sites, a Trump Organization lawyer told the Herald.

It’s possible Trump may choose to establish two library locations. People familiar with the discussions told the Herald back in June that Miami Dade College was pitched as a satellite location.

Immigration Subtext

If approved, the location would have Trump — who has aggressively pursued a sweeping deportation agenda — erecting his library next to the so-called “Ellis Island of the South.” Exhibitions inside the renovated Freedom Tower pay tribute to the exiles who fled Communist Cuba for Miami decades ago.

Now, Trump is promising to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, an operation that has led to the detention and deportation of scores of Cubans. One of Trump’s first actions in office was issuing a proclamation suspending asylum applications at the Southern U.S. border, a move a federal judge overturned this summer.

The presidential library would be a museum and hold archives from Trump’s two terms. Sources previously told the Herald that the Miami Dade College site might offer enough space to display the $400 million Boeing 747 jet that the White House secured for free from Qatar to convert into Air Force One, and which will likely be housed at his presidential library at the end of his term.

Presidential libraries aren’t required to make their donors public, but the biggest known fundraising hauls to build the library are from Trump’s high-profile defamation lawsuits against media companies. Trump’s library fund already has at least $53 million in committed donations.

In December, ABC agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library in a settlement related to Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the network for comments made by George Stephanopoulos.

In January, Meta agreed to commit $22 million over Trump’s lawsuit related to accounts the social media giant shut down. And in July, Paramount agreed to a $16 million settlement, to be paid to the library foundation, over a lawsuit against CBS’ editing for an interview with Kamala Harris last year.

The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation — which formally registered as a Florida nonprofit in May — lists the initial board of trustees as Trump’s son Eric Trump, his Miami-based son-in-law Michael Boulos and New York attorney James Kiley.

MDC Releasing Few Details

While college leaders spoke Tuesday about the potential of a presidential library as a boon to the institution, turning its Biscayne Boulevard parking lot over to the state does likely mean the college will miss out on the potential to monetize the property.

A decade ago, the college dangled the parking lot — which sits across from the new $6 billion Miami Worldcenter retail complex in the heart of downtown Miami — to developers, but ultimately scrapped plans to develop the property.

The college did not advertise the underlying purpose of the land transfer ahead of Tuesday’s vote, posting only a vague agenda describing plans to convey unnamed property to Florida’s Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund.

College officials did not confirm plans for the presidential library when asked by the Herald on Monday.There was no debate or discussion during Tuesday’s brief meeting in Hialeah. The college’s general counsel told a Herald reporter that no documents related to the vote were available Tuesday morning.

The four-person state board, made up of the governor, attorney general, chief financial officer and agriculture commissioner, will now vote on the plan next week.

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(Miami Herald staff writer Douglas Hanks contributed to this report.)

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