{"id":40101,"date":"2025-11-09T20:09:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T20:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/40101\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T20:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T20:09:11","slug":"this-florida-courthouse-is-in-such-rough-shape-that-its-going-to-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/40101\/","title":{"rendered":"This Florida courthouse is in such rough shape that it\u2019s going to auction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The building is so old that Al Capone once visited, so in need of repair that multiple floors have been declared off-limits over the years and so outdated that the owner is building a $267 million modern replacement on land it owns next door.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Those are the downsides to Miami-Dade County\u2019s 1928 civil courthouse, and buyers apparently have noticed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">On Tuesday, Miami-Dade commissioners voted to auction off the 28-story building at 73 W. Flagler St. sometime next year after the administration of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava failed to find a buyer for the property.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Miami-Dade hoped to get at least $50 million for the building \u2014 cash that\u2019s supposed to offset the cost of the 23-story modern courthouse that is getting ready to open next door. Without someone willing to purchase a building where Capone once stood trial for perjury <a href=\"https:\/\/www.leifertlaw.com\/blog\/al-capone-trial-reenacted-in-miami-courtroom\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:nine decades ago;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">nine decades ago<\/a>, the county expects to be spending millions of dollars a year to keep it in sellable shape once all the judges and court staff move out by Dec. 31.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWe\u2019re already paying for a courthouse,\u201d Levine Cava told the Miami Herald after Tuesday\u2019s vote approving the auction sale recommended by her administration. \u201cWe don\u2019t need two.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">County leaders had hoped to pitch the historic downtown building as a potential classy conversion into a mix of apartments, hotel rooms and office space.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">While the building itself is governed by Miami\u2019s strict renovation rules for historic buildings, the footprint has space for building a modern addition, county officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But when Miami-Dade put the building up for sale last year, only one serious buyer expressed interest, county officials said. That was an entity, GFO Acquisitions, controlled by Miami developer Russell Galbut. The Galbut entity offered a combination of land downtown Miami and cash in exchange for the courthouse, but there was a catch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Galbut entity also wanted to be paid at least $10 million a year as a \u201cmaintenance fee\u201d for the historic courthouse, according to a memo from the commissioner whose district includes the courthouse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The building is so old that Al Capone once visited, so in need of repair that multiple floors&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26869,588,28,30,29,26868,373],"class_list":["post-40101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-al-capone","tag-daniella-levine-cava","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-historic-building","tag-miami-dade-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}