The Freedom Tower in Miami

The Freedom Tower is a 17-story Mediterranean Revival tower at 600 Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami, opened in 1925 as the Miami News building and now run by Miami Dade College as a museum.

The National Park Service lists it at 600 Biscayne Blvd., managed by the Miami Dade College Museum of Art and Design, with both National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmark designations (National Park Service). The City of Miami's historic preservation program says the building was originally known as the Miami Daily News Tower and calls it one of the most impressive landmarks on the city's skyline (City of Miami historic preservation).

The name dates from its federal use. The city says the building was renamed Freedom Tower during the 1960s, when it served as the Cuban Refugee Emergency Center, and the NPS notes that simple gold lettering identified it as The Freedom Tower once the federal lease began (City of Miami; NPS). The college says the renovated tower holds four museum exhibitions (Freedom Tower at Miami Dade College).

Construction of the Miami tower began on June 11, 1924 and it opened on July 26, 1925, to a design by the nationally known firm of Schultze and Weaver.

The National Park Service says former Ohio governor James M. Cox bought the Miami Daily News and Metropolis in 1923 and commissioned the building as the newspaper's headquarters and printing facility (National Park Service). It reaches 17 stories and contains over 82,000 square feet; the tower itself, based on the Giralda tower of the Cathedral of Seville, is 11 stories high and three bays deep (NPS). The City of Miami credits the architects Schultze and Weaver and the builder George A. Fuller Co., and gives 1925 as the year built (City of Miami historic preservation).

The NPS lists the details worth looking for from the Biscayne Boulevard sidewalk and the lobby: oak main doors, a cast iron decorative transom, wrought iron balconies, Corinthian capitals on the columns, groined ceilings and cast concrete cherubs (National Park Service). The Miami News used the building until it moved to a new facility in 1957, and the tower then sat virtually unused for five years (NPS).

On July 1, 1962, the General Services Administration began leasing the first four floors of the Miami News Tower for the Cuban Assistance Center, which ran there until 1974, according to the National Park Service.

The center occupied the basement, lobby, mezzanine, third and fourth floors of the Biscayne Boulevard building, the NPS says, and provided in-processing, basic medical and dental services, records on relatives already in the country and relief aid (National Park Service). Refugees received identification cards, interviews to identify needs and strengths, medical examinations and surplus foods such as cheese and canned meat, and some were resettled through the center to other parts of the country where jobs were easier to find than in Miami (NPS).

The NPS puts federal spending on the Cuban Refugee Program at $957 million and says the government began phasing out the program in 1974, closing the center that year (National Park Service). This page stays with the building; the wider refugee story belongs to the Miami history section.

The Freedom Tower was donated to Miami Dade College by the Pedro Martin family, which the National Park Service dates as buying the downtown Miami building in 2005.

After the Miami center closed, the NPS says, the building was bought and sold many times and lost much of its architectural embellishment to vagrants, until Jorge Mas Canosa, founder of the Cuban American National Foundation, bought it in 1997; his family continued restoration plans after his death two months later and sold it to another Cuban American family in 2004, a year earlier than the 2005 purchase date the same page gives for the Martin family (National Park Service). The NPS adds that the college uses it as its premier exhibition space and gallery (NPS).

Today the college lists four exhibitions in the Biscayne Boulevard tower, and its Friday tour covers Libertad, Languages of Migration and the FIFA Museum's Unidad: The World's Game (Miami Dade College; Freedom Tower tours).

Yes: the National Park Service says the Miami tower was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 10, 1979 and designated a National Historic Landmark on October 6, 2008.

Miami-Dade County's Historic Resource Guide carries the same two federal dates and adds a local designation dated 10/26/82 (Miami-Dade County Historic Resource Guide). The City of Miami's own historic preservation page gives the local designation year as 1983 instead, so the city and county records disagree by a year (City of Miami historic preservation). The 1979 National Register year appears on the city page too (City of Miami).

The NPS gives the reason for national significance: it calls the Miami building the Ellis Island of the South for its 1962 to 1974 role and the single most important physical manifestation of the Cold War era Cuban exodus experience (National Park Service).

Miami Dade College opens the Freedom Tower Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 6pm, closed Monday and Tuesday, and charges $18 for general admission.

Source for every row: Freedom Tower at Miami Dade College, Tickets.

The college says hours are subject to closures for college-recognized holidays and college events, and its pages carried a closure notice for Friday, October 16 and Saturday, October 17, 2026 (Miami Dade College; Freedom Tower). The National Park Service page, last updated December 20, 2021, says admission to the exhibition space on the 2nd floor is free, while the college, which runs the tower, posts the ticket prices above (NPS; Miami Dade College).

Public tours run on a set calendar: Touch of the Tower on the first Wednesday of each month at 12:00 PM, a full-length exhibition tour every Friday at 12:00 PM, and Second Saturdays guided tours with one in English and one in Spanish (Freedom Tower tours). The Miami tower's phone is 305-237-7700 (Miami Dade College).

Visitors may park free in the Miami Dade College garage at 500 NE Second Avenue, except on Sundays, and the free Metromover has a Freedom Tower station on the Omni Loop.

The garage sits between NE Fifth and NE Sixth Streets and is Building 7 on the Wolfson Campus parking map; because it is closed on Sundays, the college sends Sunday visitors to its Parking Lot 1 on the south side of the tower (Freedom Tower directions and parking). On-street metered parking surrounds the site, and nearby garages at Miami Worldcenter and College Station can be reserved (Miami Dade College).

The Government Center Metrorail station is a short walk away, and Brightline riders can walk about five minutes from MiamiCentral Station or ride the Metromover one stop (Miami Dade College). Because the tower closes Monday and Tuesday and the garage closes Sunday, a Wednesday to Saturday visit gets both the museum and the free garage (hours; parking).

Last verified: October 18, 2026, with the National Park Service Freedom Tower page, the City of Miami historic preservation entry, the Miami-Dade Historic Resource Guide, and Miami Dade College's hours, tickets, tours and parking pages for the Biscayne Boulevard tower.