Sheriff’s Office on the hunt for land, buildings and facilities

Written by Miami Today on September 1, 2026

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava may be asked to come up with vacant or underutilized county-owned land and buildings for use by the Sheriff’s Office.

Legislation on the agenda this week would call on the mayor to find facilities that could be suitable for Sheriff’s Office use and report findings to county commissioners within 90 days.

The resolution from Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez originally focused only on vacant land, but in a July meeting of the Health and Safety Committee that he chairs it was broadened to cover land and facilities as well.

“The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office is in need of adequate facilities and operational sites to effectively fulfill countywide public safety responsibilities,” the legislation says, and the county “owns various parcels of land throughout the county, some of which are vacant or underutilized.”

Targeted sites for the Sheriff’s Office could include “administrative, operational, training, storage or related public safety purposes,” the resolution states.

The mayor would be called on to evaluate each property’s size, location, zoning, accessibility and any legal or operational constraints, as well as whether it’s required to meet a higher-priority county need.

In years past, policing of the county and its need for facilities came directly under purview of the mayor, but on Jan. 7, 2025, as a result of a 2018 state constitutional amendment, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office was created as an independent operation, one of five such constitutionally mandated branches of government that are independent of the mayor and commission.

Mr. Gonzalez in June asked for five acres for the Sheriff’s Office as commissioners were voting to return to the Air Force 32 unused acres near Homestead Air Reserve Base that the federal government had given to the county in the 1990s but in 2022 asked for it back.

“I just got off the phone with folks in the PBA (Police Benevolent Association),” he told fellow commissioners. “The Sheriff’s Office would like five acres.”

County Public Safety Director Arnold Palmer assured Mr. Gonzalez that the sheriff actually wanted another site, and the federal government got its land back.