The board of trustees of a South Florida university is appealing a judge’s ruling that temporarily blocked the agency from transferring a parcel of prime downtown Miami land to be used as President Donald Trump’s future presidential library.
Lawyers for Miami Dade College’s local board of trustees filed a notice of appeal Tuesday with Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals, challenging a lower court’s injunction barring the transfer of assets, at least for now.
Circuit Judge Marvell Lewis last month sided with Miami activists who claim university officials violated Florida’s open government law when they gifted vast tracts of real estate to the state. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida government officials then voted to transfer the property for the planned library to the foundation.
Marvin Dunn, an activist and local black history chronicler, filed a lawsuit alleging that the University Board violated Florida’s Sunshine Law by failing to provide sufficient notice of the Sept. 23 special meeting that voted to abandon the land.
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.
Both parties are scheduled to appear before a Miami-Dade judge again on November 24, and lawyers for the university will ask the court to halt the proceedings pending review by the appellate court.
