An official at Miami-Dade College said Sept. 25 that the impending “conveyance” of a valuable parcel of land is well worth the opportunity to host President Donald Trump’s presidential library at its campus.
“I think this is an amazing opportunity for our community to have a presidential library,” said Roberto Alonso, a member of the Miami-Dade College Board of Trustees.
“I mean, how many other cities have the opportunity to have a presidential library that will attract people to see it, but it will also allow our community to go learn more about the highest office in the United States, which is the office of the president?”
Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sept. 23 that the state would direct the offer of 2.63 acres, worth as much as $100 million according to one estimate, for a Donald J. Trump Presidential Library. Currently owned by MDC, the lot is used for employee and faculty parking at the college’s downtown Miami campus.
But does the decision, set to be formalized on Sept. 30, settle the simmering discussion and rivalry among South Florida state colleges and universities to host the Trump library?
There had been talk of siting a Trump presidential library potentially at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton or Florida International University in central Miami-Dade County. FIU, where Trump delivered a major speech on Venezuela in February 2019 during his first term in the White House, is just a few miles from the president’s Doral resort and golf course.
Alonso, an alum of MDC, said the four-year state college neither lobbied nor actively promoted itself as presidential library site.
He said the college’s leadership recently received a letter from the state asking them to “convey a parcel in downtown Miami” but did not explicitly say why. They then learned more on Sept. 23 when the governor and state officials made the announcement that the parcel would be used for a Trump presidential site.
“They’re the ones that are really bringing the presidential library to the conversation,” he said. “We were simply just doing a conveyance to the state.”
Alonso said he has not had any conversations either with the White House or anyone in the Trump Organization, and does not know of any discussions between other college officials and the president or his team.
To that end, he added, it is not decided that the college will be the host of the presidential library.
“My understanding is that this is what the state is proposing to the president,” said Alonso. “I haven’t heard anything from the president’s office. I haven’t seen a tweet or received a letter or anything indicating that Miami-Dade College is the setting. Honestly, we’d be honored to have a presidential library, but we have not received any confirmation.”
Being selected as the site, however, would be an enormous coup for the college that opened its doors in 1960 with just 1,500 students as Miami-Dade Junior College. Although it has hosted presidents of other countries and dignitaries, a presidential library would be a boost to its various educational fields and programs.
The Boyd Co., a Boca Raton-based corporate site selection research firm, said in an email to The Palm Beach Post that it believes the college’s parcel is worth upward of $100 million.
The company’s principal, John Boyd Jr., said a Trump presidential library could have an economic impact in South Florida that “will far exceed” the land’s value and surpass the $2.9 billion generated by the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, during its first decade.
Boyd said that’s most of any presidential center for that range of time, followed by the $2 billion from the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas.
“Given Trump’s larger-than-life global celebrity, South Florida’s already robust tourist economy and the region’s connectivity to the global marketplace, I expect the Trump Presidential Library will have an economic impact that will dwarf both of these figures,” Boyd wrote.
Boyd added the economic impact will benefit Palm Beach County as well, given the link Brightline provides, cross-county business ties and potential collaborations between “historians and academicians” at the county’s institutions, including the proposed Vanderbilt University campus in West Palm Beach.
Trump library and Freedom Tower offer a sharp contrast
Building the Trump library at the MDC site, adjacent to the iconic Freedom Tower, would also provide quite the juxtaposition. The landmark, ornate building is now a museum to its past as the headquarters of the defunct Miami News and a nostalgic Cuban refugee resettlement and processing center in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Freedom Tower’s museum and symbolism would be a striking contrats to Trump’s presidential library, which would speak to a fractious relationship with the press and a polarizing immigration policy.
But Alonso, whose parents and grandparents went through the Freedom Tower, said the two locations are not mutually exclusive.
“This is not about politics,” he said. “This is about the office of the president, and having the opportunity to host that here in our city is quite amazing.”
Moreover, the two facilities would help draw more visitors to each other given their proximity.
“I think a positive thing toward the Freedom Tower, getting more people to downtown Miami,” he said. “It’s an economic booster across our community, and doesn’t take away from it, because this is a completely separate parcel.”
The Trump library, he said, will be a place that people come to learn about the presidency and the Freedom Tower will “continue to be that signal of hope for so many that came to this community.”
Their closeness to each other is no different than having a science center and art museum a short walk away. And it’s no different than the diversity within cultural complexes in other urban areas, Alonso said.
“It’s just like when we go to a lot of cities that have multiple different museums or sites close by to each other. It just offers you the opportunity to visit multiple sites,” he said. “I think it’s an exciting time for Miami-Dade County, for our state, to be able to be selected. It’s an honor.”
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Chance to host Trump library ‘amazing opportunity,’ Miami state college official says
Reporting by Antonio Fins, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
