Miami City Hall will stay City Hall, despite shiny new digs at Freedom Park

Commission preserves historic Dinner Key home

For weeks, Miami’s political class and preservation crowd had been asking what would happen to the city’s historic Dinner Key City Hall once the other City Hall — the big, shiny new government building rising at Miami Freedom Park — opens in 2028.

Would the former Pan American Airways terminal become the headquarters for a resurrected Pan Am? Would it become a museum celebrating Miami’s aviation history? Would it become the latest waterfront condo tower? Or would it become Cocowalk II, with dockside restaurants, overpriced boutiques and artisanal cocktails for the beautiful people?

Turns out City Hall will remain — wait for it — City Hall.

Qué concepto.

The Miami City Commission voted 4-1 Thursday to keep the historic building at 3500 Pan American Drive as City Hall and the principal location for regular commission meetings — even after the city’s new administrative headquarters opens on the Miami Freedom Park property next to the shiny new stadium by the airport.

Commissioner Miguel Gabela — who lives closest to the new building — cast the lone dissenting vote.

The resolution, sponsored by Commissioner Damian Pardo, directs the city manager to continue using the Coconut Grove building as City Hall, consistent with the city code. It allows meetings elsewhere temporarily, but only in limited circumstances.

That means activists and residents will continue making the pilgrimage to Dinner Key to argue over zoning, no-bid contracts, political retaliation and whatever fresh crisis City Hall has cooked up that week.

The building certainly has history. And not just the Joe Carollo kind of history.

Originally constructed as Pan American Airways’ seaplane terminal, it served as the launching point for the airline’s famous flying boats. Pan Am sold the property to the City of Miami in 1946, and the terminal became City Hall in 1954. For more than 70 years, commissioners have governed — or grifted, depending on who you ask — from beneath its ceiling murals depicting zodiac symbols and aviation history.

Recently, however, its future became uncertain.

Miami is building a new government administration center at Miami Freedom Park, the massive real estate development disguised as a soccer stadium near Miami International Airport. That facility, designed by Architectonica, is expected to open in 2028 and consolidate city offices now scattered among multiple buildings.

So naturally, people began eyeing the waterfront property.

The revived Pan American World Airways — which is trying to relaunch after the original airline collapsed in 1991 — expressed interest in buying back its old terminal if Miami decided to sell. Apparently, even dead airlines can come back and start shopping for waterfront real estate in Miami.

Others envisioned a museum or some commercial use for the property. And everyone knows what “commercial use” means when elected officials start talking about valuable public land on Biscayne Bay: mixed use, restaurants, retail and a very long line of lobbyists.

Pardo’s resolution was meant to shut that conversation down.

“This is the civic space,” Pardo said Thursday. “It’s kind of like our ancestral home in the city of Miami. It represents Allapattah, Overtown, Flagami, Little Havana — all of us. This is really what it’s about. It’s our history.”

Many residents agreed, telling commissioners that Dinner Key is familiar, accessible and already recognized as the place where Miami residents go to address their government. That’s been for 72 years of votes, arguments, backroom deals and public outrage.

But Gabela argued that it was only accessible to some. Coconut Grove is hardly convenient for people traveling from his District 1 neighborhoods, including Allapattah and the city’s northwestern communities, he said.

“A lot of the people who are in District 4 or District 5 and my district are not here today,” Gabela said, adding that he has to drive further than anyone to get to the meetings. “This is not all the city of Miami. Frankly sir, this is all District 2.

“I find it a little bit offensive that you can’t drive to District 1,” he said.

King had to intervene: “For the record, I did have a resident of my district come here and advocate for keeping City Hall here,” she said.

Gabela also questioned how taxpayers would react after Miami had already committed to building a new government headquarters.

“The problem is that we just spent money on a supposedly new City Hall that some of us approved about two or three years ago,” Gabela said. “If they weren’t going to use the City Hall at Melreese, why build it and spend taxpayer money?

“I, for one, do not wanna give the impression of, ‘How many City Halls are these commissioners gonna have?’”

It is a fair question.

Most cities have one City Hall. Miami will soon have a historic City Hall for commission meetings and a new administrative center for city employees and government operations. The city has always had a separate home for administrating, however, in the Miami Riverside Center, the aging administrative complex at 444 SW Second Avenue where most city departments now operate and which has been deemed “functionally obsolete.” City officials plan to move those employees to Freedom Park and eventually sell the valuable Miami River property, with the proceeds helping pay for the new headquarters where the Melreese Golf Course used to be.

So while commissioners have now protected historic City Hall, the fate of the Riverside Center — and who may eventually develop that waterfront land—is still very much up in the air.

Pardo countered that the new building at Freedom Park could accommodate other city functions and that preserving the historic seat of government was worth the approximately $290,000 it costs annually to maintain. In Miami government math, that is loose change found between the cushions in some administrative office, soon to be relocated to Miami Freedom Park.

But Pardo is not the only one who has been pushing to keep City Hall at City Hall. A lot of people in the community credit former Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez, who was the first Cuban born mayor in the city of Miami in 1985, with organizing community resistance to moving City Hall — and commission or planning and zoning meetings — away from the historic site. Professor X wrote an op-ed in the Coconut Grove Spotlight and galvanized 190 people on a Save City Hall WhatsApp chat group, some of whom spoke at the commission meeting Tuesday.

Suarez cited the accessibility to the current City Hall and the available parking, though he said it should be free during commission meetings (Ladra concurs).

“Freedom Park is one of the least accessible places in all of Miami. Who wants to fight airport traffic, stadium traffic and the many trucks that service the warehouse district immediately to the north,” the senior Suarez, who is also father of former Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, wrote.

“Miami City Hall is a historic building that evokes Miami’s Caribbean location and the building’s historic function as an airport used by Pan American Clipper seaplanes, including the one that brought FDR from Havana,” he wrote, obviously knowing his audience. “Visitors, including officials from other cities, are enthralled when they see what our seat of democracy looks like.

“It’s the people’s house and it has no dress code, except for sandals, shorts and shirt.”

Still, Gabela’s accessibility argument should not be dismissed. Dinner Key sits at the southeastern edge of the city, far from many residents in Allapattah, Model City, Little Haiti and parts of Districts 1 and 5. Anyone relying on public transportation to attend an all-day commission meeting already knows that “civic participation” can become a full-day endurance sport.

But selling or commercializing the historic building was not the only solution. The city can improve transit access, provide remote participation options and hold occasional meetings in different neighborhoods without surrendering its ceremonial and historic home.

Keeping City Hall also prevents a future commission from quietly deciding that the waterfront property would be more “productive” in the hands of a private developer. Because nothing says protecting Miami history like turning Dinner Key into another place where residents cannot afford dinner.

The resolution does not solve the obvious question of what, exactly, will fill the new government building once commissioners and their regular meetings remain at Dinner Key. Nor does it eliminate the expense of operating two major municipal facilities.

Those numbers will have to be watched closely.

But Thursday’s vote at least settles the immediate question.

The old Pan Am terminal will not become Pan Am headquarters. It will not become a museum, at least not exclusively, or the latest unaffordable housing. And it will not become another waterfront lifestyle destination with valet parking and $24 avocado toast.

For now.

After all, this is Miami. No public property is ever entirely safe from the next brilliant idea.

This kind of independent, government watchdog reporting is crucial to transparency and democracy. And more so every day. Help shine a light on the darker corners of our community with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Click here. Ladra thanks you for your support.

Miami City Hall will stay City Hall, despite shiny new digs at Freedom Park added by Ladra on September 11, 2026
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