The Freedom Tower is a historic 1925 landmark building in Miami, Florida, that serves as a memorial to Cuban immigration to the United States. It is located at 600 Biscayne Boulevard on the Wolfson Campus of Miami Dade College. On September 10, 1979, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark on October 6, 2008.
Originally completed in 1925 as the headquarters and printing facility of the Miami News & Metropolis newspaper, it is an example of Mediterranean Revival style with design elements borrowed from the Giralda Tower in Seville, Spain. Its cupola on a 255 foot (78 m) tower contained a decorative beacon.
In 1957 The Miami News vacated the building to move to a new state-of-the-art facility on the Miami River. As refugees from Cuba fleeing the Castro communist regime arrived in Miami in the 1960s, the federal government used the facility to process, document and provide medical and dental services for the newcomers. After the major wave of refugees ended in 1972, the government sold the building in 1974. The building passed through several owners before and after being listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
In 1997 the building was purchased for US$4.1 million by Jorge Mas Canosa, founder and leader of the Cuban American National Foundation]], and restored and converted into a monument for the refugees who fled to the United States from communist Cuba. It housed a museum, library, meeting hall, and the offices of the Cuban American National Foundation.
In 2004, the Freedom Tower was purchased by developer Pedro Martin and his company, Terra Group, who proposed a new building (possibly condominiums) on an adjacent part of the property. Preservationists opposed the plan, and in 2005 the developers donated Freedom Rower to Miami Dade College, which is using it as a cultural and educational center. The city later granted approval to the developers to build on the back of the property without demolishing the original tower.
More recently, Miami Dade College has hosted major exhibitions including showcasing the works of masters Dali, Goya and Da Vinci since the Martin family donated the tower to the institution. It has plans to expand the offerings at the Tower and install exhibitions honoring the Freedom Tower’s past as the home of a major newspaper and the site where hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees were processed. The college will also honor the building’s architecture. It recently restored the New World Mural on the mezzanine level of the Tower. Miami Dade College is a national model for its cultural programming.