MIAMI — Much of Miami’s city government will be moving to a gleaming new administrative complex near Miami Freedom Park in the Grapeland Heights neighborhood. But commissioners decided that one key function will stay at the historic City Hall in Coconut Grove.

Suzanne Howland, the granddaughter of the man who helped build the iconic waterfront Art Deco building at 3500 Pan American Drive, said the structure must be preserved.

“My grandfather built this building: Fred Howland of Fred Howland Construction Company,” Howland said. “This is an iconic building, it must be preserved.”

The building was constructed in the 1930s as Pan American World Airways’ seaplane terminal and has operated as Miami City Hall since the 1950s.

“Significant because of its beauty, its location, its usage, its accessibility,” Howland said. “I think the beauty of this building, the artistry, the history, the symbolism, is so important.”

Rich Heisenbottle, a leading renovation architect who worked to restore the building, said the connection between Miami and Pan Am is forever intertwined in the building.

“And that international connection that Pan Am brought to Miami has helped us even today, that international connection is the reason we are the city we are today, the exciting, vibrant, multicultural city that we are,” Heisenbottle said.

Heisenbottle said that 10 years ago, the building “was in quite a bit of disarray.”

“What we did was uncover all the designs that were part of the Delano & Aldrich interior for Pan Am when it served as Pan Am’s terminal,” Heisenbottle said.

Several community members, historic preservation advocates and even former Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado gathered to support a resolution by District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo.

Deborah Stander, president of Hangar 5 Foundation, Inc., called the building, “arguably Miami’s most iconic building that speaks so directly to our city’s identity as an international gateway to the Americas.”

“This is literally the embodiment of the gateway — this is the gateway,” Stander said.

Regalado said Miami cannot keep erasing its history.

“The most important thing is that we have little history,” Regalado said. “We cannot keep erasing the history of Miami. We can’t keep giving away the history of our city. We are stewards of the history of Miami.”

The resolution would continue the historic building’s use as City Hall, home to regular City Commission meetings, instead of moving into the new administration building under construction at the soccer stadium site near Miami International Airport.

“You don’t have to abandon your past to build your future,” said Prado.

The item was backed by several of his colleagues.

District 4 Commissioner Ralph Rosado said the city of Miami does not always have the best history of preserving its cultural, historic and civic assets.

“Today is about letting the public know we very much want to preserve this building, a civic function associated with it, and that it should be here for the rest of time,” Rosado said. “Our concern is that a private operator would take this over, maybe doing renovations that are not in keeping with the history of Miami.

“We have seen it before, we want to make sure that we express our commitment to keeping this building here, keeping it for history.”

District 5 Commissioner Christine King said the goal is to preserve City Hall and not move commission meetings from the historic space to the new administration building farther west.

“We see all across the U.S. where cities preserve their historic spaces,” King said. “In Miami, we seem to want to tear it down and just be a modern city and everything new and sparkly. We are standing here with Commissioner Pardo so we continue to utilize this space for what it was meant for.

“We are standing in unity because we want to see this space preserved. We want to continue to have our commission meetings here. We want to show not only the city of Miami but the rest of the world that we care about our historic spaces as well.”

Pardo said the building represents Miami’s connection to the Caribbean and Latin America.

“This is where our leaders for 70 years debated our future, that is a tremendous legacy, this is the people’s place, where they come to speak and we want to make sure we honor that, where global leaders would come,” Pardo said. “There is nothing to replace this.”

The lone dissenter was District 1 Commissioner Miguel Gabela, who expressed concern about potential taxpayer duplication given that a new administration building is going up.

Pardo said those were valid concerns but that the city was still early enough in the process to make accommodations.

“I think those are very valid concerns, but we are still ahead enough in the process that we can make a lot of accommodations,” Pardo said.

The item passed 4-1, with Gabela voting no.

“Done and done, not moving, we are here,” Pardo said.

Natalia Curjeiras, the CEO of the Museum of Miami, a key stakeholder in telling the story of Miami, pitched commissioners on the idea of moving in.

“This is a historic gem, and we can have the ability to share the story of Miami and preserve this site for generations to come,” Curjeiras said.

Describing a “very, very preliminary” plan, Curjeiras said the museum proposed preserving the historic terminal while building a dedicated museum next it.

She said the museum “is better equipped than anyone else to preserve this site for future generations,” as a curator of Pan Am artifacts and other historic items and documents.

“There is no other place that has so many layers of our history,” Curjeiras said. “The fact that we can bring those artifacts to where that history happened is a really powerful thing.”

Curjeiras told Local 10 News that, in addition to commission meetings, the museum could help activate chambers with a range of community programming to lean into the civic space Pardo described as Miami’s “ancestral home.”

“And what we want to build is a civic campus, where our community can come, learn about our history, go to a commission meeting, or attend a public event, or walk around the bay and make sure our children, and the children of our children and have access to that and take pride in the access to that history of the place we call home,” she said.

As for the idea of constructing an adjacent building for the museum, Howland expressed concern about what that could look like.

“I would like to see evidence of that plan but it just seems to me, shooting from the hip, that it would be an obstruction interfering with the setting of this building,” Howland said. “That perhaps, visually, it wouldn’t be such a great thing, but hard to say until we see it, would like to see it, but I think this should remain in the visual isolation that it is for it to be appreciated.”

Curjeiras said any new museum building would have to be built at scale in a way that allows the Pan Am terminal to remain the visual focus.

“It could potentially be behind, aside, that has yet to be determined, that is a whole process that would have to take place,” she said. “So we will present an intent to the city where we can hopefully come up with a framework that would allow us to start a formal conversation about next steps.”

Pardo said he anticipates the city will likely receive public-private partnership pitches from others seeking to collaborate.

“We are all open to everything, we also have Pan Am Airways there, they are starting the new Pan American Airways, they were here making a pitch of wanting to potentially have this space for operations in the future,” Pardo said.

Pardo said ultimately, the biggest criterion for consideration is financial viability.

“For the city the biggest criteria is the financial viability of whoever comes in here with us,” Pardo said. “We want to make sure that they can pay their share, that we can keep maintaining the building, which only costs $295,000 a year to maintain so at least it is not a big weight on the budget it is well worth the money to keep City Hall here.”

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