Freedom Tower Closed Until 2025 As It Undergoes Major Restoration Project
Miami Dade College’s Freedom Tower, a facility where thousands of immigrants have been processed as they start their journey in the United States, is getting a facelift.
The National Historic Landmark has been closed since last May but is expected to reopen by 2025 for its 100th birthday.
Renovations will be completed using various funding streams that exceed $26 million.
“The repairs will ensure that the Freedom Tower will be preserved, along with its historic and architectural significance,” said Maria Carla Chicuen, the executive director of cultural affairs at Wolfson Campus.
Some of the changes will include repairing the building’s columns, shoring up the Tower’s floors, modernizing its elevator system, implementing new lighting, addressing water intrusion issues that have caused flooding in the basement and improving accessibility for people with disabilities.
Funding for the upgrades started filtering in in January of 2022 when the State of Florida approved a $25 million endowment proposed by Governor Ron De Santis toward the restoration project.
In January, the College received a $500,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities—an independent federal agency that supports the preservation of the humanities—and a $500,000 grant from the State of Florida’s Cultural Facilities Program in June.
The restoration project will be done by MC Harry Associates and the Thornton Construction Company, alongside Heisenbottle Architects, a company renowned for their historical preservation projects.
Originally built in 1925 by James Middleton Cox, a former Ohio Congressman, governor and presidential nominee, the Freedom Tower was intended to house his new acquisition, the Miami Daily News and Metropolis, which later became the Miami News.
The building’s architectural framework was designed to mirror a Spanish Cathedral; its 289-foot height made it the tallest structure in the south at the time.
Following the newspaper’s relocation in 1957, the tower was vacant for five years. In 1962, it became a processing center for the federal Cuban Refugee Assistance Program to assist the wave of Cuban immigrants fleeing their homeland during the 1959 communist revolution.
The tower was later pegged as el refugio (the refuge) where thousands of Cubans received financial support, food, medical care and guidance to start anew on American soil.
Forty-six years later, it was established as a United States National Historic Landmark.
It currently houses the Museum of Art and Design and the offices of the College’s Cultural Affairs Department, Miami Book Fair, Miami Film Festival and Live Arts Miami.
“From its origins as the headquarters of the acclaimed Miami Daily News to its historic role welcoming hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees in the 1960s and 1970s…the Freedom Tower has honored its name as a beacon of freedom, hope, opportunity, culture, and education,” Chicuen said. “It is arguably the most significant National Historic Landmark in our region.”
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