MIAMI — Pan American Airways, founded in 1927 in Key West, turned a former U.S. Navy station that had served as a World War I training base into a commercial seaplane base in Miami’s Dinner Key.
Pan Am’s inaugural flight to Panama was in 1930. Architects William Adams Delano and Chester Holmes Aldrich, both Ecole des Beaux-Arts graduates, designed the Art Deco-style terminal building.
The seaplane base’s upgrades were built from 1931 to 1938. The city purchased the property in 1946, a year after it closed, and converted 3500 Pan American Drive into City Hall in 1954.
“No plans exist yet for the historic building’s future,” Helena Poleo, a spokeswoman for the city, recently wrote in a statement to Local 10 News about the City Hall’s move to Freedom Park in 2027.
The National Register of Historic Places listed the rectangular two-story building in 1975. R.J. Heisenbottle Architects was involved in the 2001 renovation project.
Artists restored the original ceiling panels that depicted the signs of the Zodiac, and repaired the beams that were decorated with stylized wings and bands.
The artists also restored the murals that depicted the history of flight through themes ranging from Leonardo da Vinci’s designs to the Clipper planes.
Related link: City updates on the new administration building
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