Miami police, fire chiefs say $450M bond could fix leaky roofs, mold in stations
Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins wants voters to green-light a half-billion dollars in spending to repair the city’s aging public safety buildings.
But before the $450 million bond can land on the August ballot, Higgins first needs to get buy-in from the City Commission, which is slated to vote on the mayor’s proposal Thursday.
In the meantime, Higgins has secured backing from the city’s police and fire chiefs, who this week showed members of the media the deteriorating conditions at the Miami Police Department headquarters and city fire stations, including mold, leaks, patched-up floors and out-of-order plumbing.
“Imagine you being a victim,” Miami Police Chief Manuel Morales said as he showcased a segment of the ceiling in the city’s homicide unit that he said “leaks with the smallest of rains.”
“This doesn’t inspire confidence that the detectives are going to be able to solve the case,” Morales said of the 1976 police headquarters.
Under Higgins’ proposal, called the Safe and Ready Miami bond, the city would get a brand-new public safety building, to include the Miami police headquarters, an emergency operations center that can withstand a Category 5 hurricane, Miami Fire-Rescue headquarters and an on-site fire station.
The likely location for the new public safety building is the Miami Freedom Park site near Miami International Airport, home to Inter Miami’s Nu Stadium. Morales said he was “agnostic” about a police headquarters location but said the Freedom Park site “makes operations a little simpler” because it would be next to the city’s new administration building, which will also house City Hall.
He said funding is needed not just to address issues related to plumbing and leaks — but also to accommodate a staff that is more than triple the size of what the downtown police headquarters were built to accommodate.
“We’re basically using duct tape and bubble gum to kind of keep the building together,” Morales said.
Miami Fire-Rescue Chief Robert Hevia is also on board. During a tour of downtown’s Fire Station 1 on Monday, Hevia showed brown water splotches blooming across white ceiling tiles, dilapidated showers used by the city’s firefighters working 24-hour shifts, and a boiler room with rusty and corroded machinery.
“Obviously, this is critical infrastructure, because if it fails, our units can’t respond,” Hevia said, adding that the city’s decades-old fire stations are “bursting at the seams” and don’t fit modern fire engines and machinery.
Hevia said the issues plague fire stations across the city.
“This is not a tomorrow problem,” he said. “This is a today problem.”
Brickell’s Fire Station 4 is currently housed in temporary trailer-like facilities. It’s on the same piece of land where developer JDS is building the Mercedes-Benz Places Miami building. As part of the developer’s agreement with the city, JDS agreed to build a new fire station on-site.
The temporary conditions, however, have been cause for concern. Hevia said that in January, a firefighter was brushing his teeth in the bathroom when he fell through the floor. Metal sheets have been installed on the floor to even out the weight distribution.
In a statement to the Herald, JDS said it has been “working diligently” with Miami Fire-Rescue to address maintenance issues and upgrades.
“Due to the use of large amounts of water in cleaning the floors several times a day, repairs to the flooring have been performed in ordinary course,” JDS said. “The Fire Department has requested a floor replacement and developer has advised the city that the materials have been ordered and the work will ... commence within approximately 2 weeks.”
Under the proposed bond, the city would rebuild the city’s Fire Station 1 downtown and Station 10 near Flagami and build five completely new fire stations, including one in East Shenandoah, another on Watson Island and the fire station that will be attached to the public safety building at Miami Freedom Park.
The police and fire unions, which represent the agencies’ rank-and-file, are also backing the mayor’s bond measure.
“It has become a running joke: water leaking from the ceiling into kiddie pools placed around detectives’ desks, officers getting stuck in the one working elevator, or being sent home early because there is not even a usable bathroom,” Miami’s Fraternal Order of Police President Felix Del Rosario said in an April 17 letter.
Alexander Cardenas, president of the Miami Association of Firefighters, said in a letter that same day that the city has been using “band-aids” to deal with major infrastructure issues.
“While these interventions have allowed us to continue performing our jobs, at some point, conditions become deplorable and a call for action becomes imperative and painstakingly obvious,” Cardenas said. “That time has come. The band-aids are no longer resolving these critical deficiencies.”
This story was originally published April 21, 2026 at 3:54 PM.
.jpg)