Dade Heritage Trust (DHT) is the leading voice for historic preservation in Miami-Dade County. Founded as a nonprofit, 501(c)3 membership organization in 1972, Dade Heritage Trust works to preserve the architectural, cultural and environmental heritage of South Florida through advocacy, education and restoration. 

 

Dade Heritage Trust works to save historic properties and revitalize historic neighborhoods. Efforts include restoring landmarks, working with the media and community leaders, publishing books and magazines, and presenting tours and historic programs for schools and the general public.

 


FREEDOM TOWER
Selling city's heritage to the highest bidder

as printed in the Miami Herald: Tuesday, June 28th, 2005

BY BECKY ROPER MATKOV
info@dadeheritagetrust.org

A tidal wave of high-rise condominiums is sweeping over Miami.

City zoning laws -- allowing developers to use adjacent public parks, streets, the bay, even submerged lands, as if these public assets were their own property in determining the allowable size of a project -- are producing architectural monsters. These behemoths may bring riches to the developer and inflate the city's tax base in the short term, but they are negatively impacting adjacent historic structures, overwhelming traditional neighborhoods and diminishing precious green space.

The impact of the current zoning laws is especially egregious on historic neighborhoods and landmarks. Morningside, Bayside, Coconut Grove, Spring Garden and the Roads have had to defend themselves against oversized development projects that would overwhelm quiet neighborhoods of graceful old homes.

The most outrageous is the project being developed by the new owners of Miami's famous landmark, the Miami News/Freedom Tower. They are proposing a gigantic 62-story condo, almost four times the height of the Freedom Tower, that would encompass two lots and a railroad track, demolish the back of the Tower and erase from the skyline Miami's most recognized and revered icon.

The Freedom Tower was built at 600 Biscayne Blvd. in 1925 as the Miami News Building. It was designed by the renowned New York architectural firm Schultze and Weaver, architects for Grand Central Station and the Waldorf Astoria in New York and the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. The 17-story structure was modeled after the 16th-century Giralda Bell Tower in Seville, Spain. For 32 years it housed the reporters, editors and printing presses of Miami's oldest paper. From 1962 through 1974, when thousands of Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro poured into Miami, the building was christened ''The Freedom Tower.'' It served as a processing center, offering food, medical care and assistance in resettling in America. More than 400,000 Cubans went through the Freedom Tower's doors, all with memories and stories that they will never forget.

The Tower was restored in 1988 as an elegant ballroom. The National Trust for Historic Preservation hosted its President's Gala there in 1992, with hundreds of national leaders admiring the beauty of this National Register building.

When the foreign owners of the Freedom Tower had legal and financial troubles, the Tower was closed in 1993, then left empty and vandalized for several years. In 1997 Dade Heritage Trust succeeded in a campaign to acquire state CARL (Conservation and Recreational Land) funding to purchase the Freedom Tower as a Visitor Welcome Center and Museum. Before the state could purchase the Tower, the Mas family bought it for $4.2 million, saying that they would use their own funds to restore the building as a first-class Cuban museum. Despite several years of work, the project never opened.

In the fall, Miami-Dade County proposed buying the Freedom Tower for use by the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, planning to use general-obligation-bond funding to do so. The Mas family decided to sell instead to a developer who would now trivialize this historic monument by making it an appendage of a mammoth condo.

For 80 years the Miami News/Freedom Tower has been Miami's defining landmark, a beacon for ships at sea, an instantly recognized landmark in postcards, books and news footage. It is Florida's Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, a national symbol of American generosity and refugees' hopes and dreams. If there is any building worth saving in Miami's skyline, worth fighting to preserve in all its architectural integrity, it is the Freedom Tower. This is where the city of Miami must draw the line and say, ``No -- we will not sell our historic soul.''

Becky Roper Matkov is the executive director of Dade Heritage Trust, Miami's largest historic preservation nonprofit organization.