In an attempt to commemorate the Cuban-American experience in Miami, a new museum will be built remembering the history of Cubans moving from Communist Cuba to the city.

The plan to build the museum was approved in a meeting of the Miami-Dade County Commission, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune, and will move forward, giving County Mayor Carlos Gimenez three months to compile a viability study for the project estimated to cost upwards of $100 million.

The Biscayne Bay has been proposed as the site for the building in a plot of land near the American Airlines Arena, the Herald Tribune reported.

Cuban immigrants have transformed the area in the past half-century and are linked to Miami's history. Now, more than half of the city's 2.5 million residents are of Cuban descent, and though the city's Hispanic make up is changing, its link to Cuban migration remains.

The Cuban Exile History Museum was approved by a majority vote of 8-3, according to the Miami Herald; however, arguments after the vote highlighted "the community's ethnic sensitivities."

Commissioner Esteban Bovo, whose father was a Bay of Pigs veteran, argued that the museum exemplified the American story.

"It's about those who come with nothing and create something," he said.

Yet, some African-American commissioners questioned why a year earlier, the County Commission thoroughly debated the construction of a Nigerian museum. Some dissenting commissioners also argued against building the museum on the plot known as Parcel B.

Commissioner Audrey Edmonson, on whose district the museum will be built, expressed her support for the museum but rejected the location the county intended to build it, the Miami Hearld reported.

El Nuevo Herald, a Miami Spanish-language paper, reported that local residents opposed the construction of the museum in Parcel B, asking instead for it to become a public park. A spokesperson from Miami Neighborhood United argued that structures like the arena obstruct access to public land, and "once public land is at the disposition of private companies, it is hard to recover it."

Nick Gutierrez, the museum's organizing committee's secretary, reassured the public that the museum idea does not reject the building of a public park. The project plan will allot, Gutierrez said, three quarters of Parcel B's three acres for green space.

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