Billionaire Ken Griffin, CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, now officially owns an entire block of Miami's Brickell financial district. This comes after the City of Miami Commission voted Thursday to sell the site of a historic cottage and home of a historic preservation agency to him.
Commissioners voted unanimously to approve the $3 million sale of the Jackson Cottage land to Griffin's company, which will now build a new 54-story, multibillion-dollar global headquarters for Citadel.
The cottage was from the early 1900s office and home of Dr. James Jackson: Miami's first medical doctor when the city was incorporated in 1896, and the namesake of Jackson Health System. Today, the city-owned property serves as the offices of the Dade Heritage Trust (DHT), a local historic preservation nonprofit.
Local preservation advocates at city hall spoke against the sale, arguing it would eliminate one of the few remaining historic Miami structures from the Brickell area.
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Christine Rupp, executive director of DHT, told WLRN in an interview that the sale will benefit her organization. Griffin's company promised DHT to give them the actual cottage structure and move it to a new lot in Coconut Grove. That would make DHT the owner of the Jackson Cottage, as opposed to leasing it from the city as they do now.
"For us, owning this building and ensuring its long time preservation and the use is a positive," Rupp told WLRN. "Once they have control of this site, Citadel will give this building to Dade Heritage Trust. They will relocate it and pay for the construction and maintenance."
This won't be the first time the cottage takes a trip across the city. The structure was originally built in 1905 near downtown Miami, and was sold around 1916 and transported by barge to its current location in Brickell.
Rupp said a new location will be better for the century-old cottage because it won't have to contend with the constant traffic and construction debris common to Brickell.
Though the city commission approved the sale, any actions taken on the historically designated property must be approved by the city's Historic and Environmental Preservation Board at a later date.
