Cuban history museum wants downtown Miami land

The Cuban Exile History Museum is pushing for a new location on county-owned land behind the AmericanAirlines Arena.

Museum advocates asked Miami-Dade to turn over the downtown land so an 80-foot-tall, $125 million complex could be built, the Miami Herald reported. The new museum would be nearly 10 times larger than the current location on Coral Way.

“We feel the site is the perfect place to preach not to choir only, but to the public at large,” Bay of Pigs veteran William Muir told the Herald. Muir is a lead organizer of the group promoting the idea of a downtown museum.

“You have all of the tourists from the cruise ships there,” Muir said. “And you have all of the Latin American tourists in downtown. What better place?”

The idea is getting resistance from the Miami Heat and several politicians, however. Miami-Dade Commissioner Audrey Edmonson plans to sponsor a resolution prohibiting construction on the land, which would be used as a park instead. City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff also expressed his opposition to the museum.

“Give me a break,” Sarnoff told the Herald. “How about having some grass?” [Miami Herald] — Eric Kalis