Video above: Florida Cabinet backs Trump’s future presidential library
A Florida judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the transfer of a prime location in downtown Miami planned for President Donald Trump’s future presidential library.
The move by Circuit Court Judge Marvell Lewis came after Miami activists argued that local university officials violated Florida’s open government law when they gifted vast tracts of real estate to the state of Florida, which voted to transfer it to a foundation where the library would be built.
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“This is not an easy decision,” Marvell said Tuesday in explaining the court’s decision, acknowledging that the university failed to give the public reasonable notice before last month’s vote.
“At least in this court, this is not a case rooted in politics,” she added.
The nearly 3-acre (1.2 hectare) property is a developer’s dream, valued at more than $67 million in 2025, according to a 2025 appraisal by the Miami-Dade County Real Estate Appraiser. One real estate expert is betting the parcel — one of the last remaining undeveloped parcels of land on the iconic palm-tree-lined Biscayne Boulevard district — could sell for hundreds of millions of dollars or more.
Marvin Dunn, an activist and local black history chronicler, filed a lawsuit this month in Miami-Dade County Court against the board of Miami-Dade College, the state school that owned the site. He alleged that the board violated Florida’s Sunshine Law by not providing sufficient notice of the Sept. 23 special meeting at which it voted to abandon the land.
The agenda released ahead of the meeting only states that the board will consider transferring assets to a state fund overseen by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet, without providing details about which assets would be considered or why. Unlike all other meetings the board has held this year, the 8 a.m. meeting on Sept. 23 was not livestreamed.
A week later, Mr. DeSantis and other Republican leaders voted to transfer the land again, effectively placing it under the control of the Trump family when they transferred the property to Mr. Trump’s library foundation. The foundation is led by three directors: Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump’s husband Michael Boulos, and presidential lawyer James Kiley.
The university’s lawyer, Jesús Suárez, argued that the MDC had done what it was required to do by law and questioned the political motive behind Dunn’s lawsuit.
“Under Florida law, there is no requirement for the notice to be specific, because the trustees can walk into that room and talk to each other about whatever they want,” Suarez said.
Dunn’s lawyers argue that anyone not already involved in the deal could not have known what the board would do.
“When a transaction is so significant and so unusual that it takes this land away from students and the university, the public has a right to know what decisions are being made,” Richard Brodsky, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the judge’s ruling.
Javier Rey-Soto, general counsel for Miami Dade College, testified that the land transfer is still in its final stages. He estimated that the injunction delay could cost the university up to $300,000.
Other locations in Florida have previously been floated as possible locations for the library, including facilities associated with Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and Florida International University outside Miami. DeSantis signed a bill this year that pre-empts local governments from blocking presidential library development, aimed at overcoming possible opposition from liberal counties and municipalities.
