The historic former Pan American Airways seaplane terminal at 3500 Pan American Dr. has long been home to Miami City Hall.
Carl Juste
cjuste@miamiherald.com
The city of Miami is moving full steam ahead with a plan to relocate City Hall from the iconic Pan American Airways building in Coconut Grove to Miami Freedom Park, a sprawling development site near Miami International Airport.
Miami Freedom Park is best known as the home of the new Inter Miami soccer stadium, officially named Nu Stadium and slated for grand opening on April 4.
But it also includes a new city of Miami building that will combine office space for the city administration with facilities for Miami’s mayor and five commissioners. The building, currently under construction, will replace the city’s administrative campus located at the downtown Miami Riverside Center, which has been declared “functionally obsolete.”
Construction is ongoing at the new city of Miami administration building at the site of Nu Stadium on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Miami, Fla. Photo by Matias J. Ocner mocner@miamiherald.com
While the plan to relocate the city administration building to Miami Freedom Park has been more widely discussed, the prospect of combining it with City Hall has received less attention.
For decades, City Commission meetings have been held in the former Pan Am seaplane terminal on Dinner Key. The city purchased the land and the building from Pan Am in 1946, and converted the terminal into City Hall in 1954. The 1931 building was later listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
But by early 2028, the city anticipates the new administrative building will be “fully functional and fully operational,” according to Asael Marrero, assistant city manager.
Marrero said in an interview this week that the new building includes City Commission chambers, plus “all of the relevant spaces that we have today at City Hall” like the city clerk’s office and the city commissioners’ offices.
Those offices, he said, “will be essentially duplicated and replaced at this brand new administration building.”
A rendering showing the interior of the Miami City Commission chambers located in the new city administration building. City of Miami
What does that mean for the future of the historic City Hall building on Pan American Drive?
“To be honest with you, I don’t know what the future for that space is,” Marrero said. “That is a wonderful, historic building for the city of Miami.”
Marrero added that he doesn’t think there are “any plans to do anything with that facility at this point.”
Andrew Frey, director of the city’s Department of Real Estate & Asset Management, said there have not been conversations about the possibility of selling or leasing Miami City Hall.
Meanwhile, the city is also considering moving police headquarters to the Miami Freedom Park site. In December, the commission passed a proposal directing the city manager to approve the site as the location for the new Miami Police Department headquarters, “subject to the results of a traffic study analysis.”
A rendering showing the interior of the Miami City Commission chambers located in the new city administration building. City of Miami
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Tess Riski covers Miami City Hall. She joined the Miami Herald in 2022 and has covered local politics throughout Miami-Dade County. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School’s Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism.