Miami-Dade County is preparing to auction the Historic Dade County Courthouse, opening a new chapter for one of Downtown Miami’s most recognizable civic landmarks. The vacant 28-story courthouse, located at 73 W. Flagler Street, sits in the heart of the city’s urban core and carries a formal listing on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Originally completed in 1928, the tower has long been a symbol of the county’s government and legal system and now is being positioned for a new use through an open auction process.
The county is using GovDeals.com to conduct the online auction, which is scheduled to run from July 1 through July 31, 2026. During this period, qualified bidders will be able to submit offers for the property through the platform. Miami-Dade County is marketing the opportunity as a chance to reimagine a well-known historic asset, emphasizing its location in a dense downtown environment and its architectural significance.
As part of the offering, Miami-Dade County is explicitly inviting interest from developers, preservationists, and innovators who see potential in an adaptive redevelopment of the courthouse. The county has framed the process as a search for proposals that respect and highlight the building’s historic architecture while repositioning it for contemporary needs. Officials have indicated that they want any redevelopment concept to honor the property’s architectural legacy, rather than erase or diminish it.
The county has also emphasized broader goals tied to the courthouse’s future use. It is seeking proposals that celebrate the building’s cultural role in the community, help activate the surrounding downtown streetscape, and provide new opportunities that will serve and inspire future generations in the region. In this way, the auction is being connected to Miami-Dade’s broader effort to stimulate activity and investment in the urban core.
To support prospective plans, Miami-Dade County has highlighted the potential availability of several forms of historic-property incentives. Interested bidders may be able to access federal historic rehabilitation tax credits associated with qualifying renovation work on properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, the county notes that local historic preservation incentives could apply, along with ad valorem tax exemptions that are sometimes available for designated historic properties.
The combination of historic status, downtown location, and incentive eligibility positions the courthouse as a specialized redevelopment opportunity rather than a conventional office asset. While Miami-Dade County is seeking concepts that align with preservation principles, the auction format on GovDeals.com opens the process to a wide range of bidders who can propose different adaptive reuse strategies, provided they reinforce the building’s cultural and architectural significance.
