It’s the December holiday season and time for many travel-minded celebrants to head for New York City to take in a Broadway show, shop along Fifth Avenue or skate the Rockefeller Center ice rink beneath the latest multi-story Christmas tree.
Early this week, leaders of South Florida’s three countywide economic development agencies are scheduled to touch down in Manhattan for a shopping trip of their own — but the priority won’t be to browse through Bergdorf Goodman or Saks Fifth Avenue. Their holiday lists include unnamed New York-based companies that might be interested in relocating operations to Palm Beach, Broward or Miami-Dade counties, or at the very least, might consider setting up regional offices in the tri-county area.
Why would a company do that? Just read the New York Post. The city, the headlines blare, is awash in rampant crime, homelessness, suffocating taxes, over-the-top housing prices, and government by stifling regulation. And, a majority of the city’s voters just elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor, a Democratic Socialist who critics insist will deliver more of the same.
In interviews last week, the president/CEOs of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance and Beacon Council in Miami-Dade suggested their mission really isn’t a case of striking political irons while they’re hot.
“The delegation’s visit reflects the deep economic and industry connections shared by South Florida and New York City, with the two markets linked by companies and talent that actively operate across both geographies,” the agencies said in a joint statement last week.
The three-day visit, which starts Tuesday and runs through Thursday, will include meetings among corporate executives, site selectors, professional advisers, “and other key market influencers to reinforce the strong business ties between the two regions and spotlight new cross-market opportunities.”
Combined, South Florida has gross domestic product of more than $533 billion, and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) has more than 6.3 million residents, “a multilingual workforce, and globally connected infrastructure.”
Asked to comment on the South Florida agencies’ recruiting trip — and an array of prominent billboard ads promoting Palm Beach County in New York’s Times Square — the city’s economic development agency took the high road. In a statement, a spokesperson for the New York City Economic Development Corp. didn’t mention either.
“New York City is the greatest city in the world and the premier place to do business,” the statement said. “Beyond its status as the financial capital, New York City is a global hub for commerce and innovation, with the second largest tech sector outside of Silicon Valley. New York City is home to the deepest, most diverse talent pool in the country, with over a million college students and recent graduates. We are leading the nation in talent attraction, office recovery, and commercial leasing, and companies like Chobani, OpenAI, and Bridgewater Associates want to build roots here — all for one simple reason: there’s no place like New York City.”
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is not a specific target of a campaign being waged by South Florida development agencies that are recruiting New York companies to relocate to Florida. But his political philosophies help. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Regional approach
Bob Swindell, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, said it has been a “long time” since the three agencies jointly engaged in a recruiting trip.
“It’s really about talking about the strength of the region,” he said. “The companies get the benefit of us trying to make the case that our specific part of South Florida is best as a location. I think the three counties have distinct personalities and that’s a strength. I like to think we [Greater Fort Lauderdale] are the magic in the middle. We have a great quality of life here that is special to us. We’re also trying to make it clear that we welcome everybody.”
Kelly Smallridge, president and CEO of the Business Development Board, said the trip is designed in part to show the counties’ collective interest in similar industries, most notably finance, technology and life sciences.
“I think this is an opportunity to meet with companies who would like to explore relocating or expanding and get a better understanding of the business landscape in South Florida,” she said. “We know South Florida has been a hotbed for companies in the Northeast for many, many years.”
“The strategy is not new,” Smallridge added.
Pandemic a driving force
All three counties say they benefitted from the COVID-19 pandemic, when residents of New York and other large metropolitan areas saw Florida take a lead in reopening for business. That, coupled with the absence of a state income tax and South Florida’s outdoor-oriented lifestyle, became an incentive for a number of northern companies and families to move south.
“The pandemic was really the impetus,” Swindell said. “We branded South Florida and Florida as a great business climate for decades. It was the pandemic that brought a lot of attention and focus to multiple benefits of being in South Florida.”
But initiatives to trigger relocations weren’t “an overnight success.”
“I think people just need to be motivated,” he said. “There are a lot of things that go into the decision to relocate whether it’s a home or a business. ‘At the end of the day, am I better off?’ We’re here to help with that transition.”
Bye bye
From the standpoint of overt visibility campaigns, Palm Beach County probably has been the most aggressive of the three counties. For well over a decade, Smallridge has led a “Wall Street South” campaign designed to attract financial industry firms including private equity and wealth management companies to her county.
In mid-winter, the agency placed ads in Times Square to spread a continuing message that sunshine, beaches and wealth can go hand-in-hand, and that it’s time to move.
Recently, BDB-sponsored billboards went up bearing the breakup message: “Dear NYC, it’s not you. It’s me.”
Palm Beach County’s Business Development Board has waged aggressive ad campaigns in New York’s Times Square to encourage businesses to relocate to Florida. Ads such as this one in 2023 have generated heavy phone and social media traffic. (Business Development Board of Palm Beach County/Courtesy)
By the agency’s reckoning, $10 billion of $39 billion in wealth that exited the Northeast for Florida post-pandemic ended up in Palm Beach County, which is now home to 70 billionaires and more than 70,000 millionaires.
“It created a big stir,” Smallridge said of the campaign. “It was definitely the most clever campaign that has ever come out of our organization. The views and hits on our website spiked dramatically. Business leaders and influencers took pictures. Then you’ve got these national media personalities using the term ‘Wall Street South’ over and over again. Wall Street South is now becoming a household name.”
Over time, it seeped into the narratives of Miami-Dade County, which became home of the financial giant Citadel, which relocated from Chicago to Miami in 2022.
But Rodrick Miller, president and CEO of Miami-Dade’s Beacon Council, said the joint South Florida recruiting effort is not designed to diminish New York’s capacity as a world financial capital or to serve as a commentary on its most recent political turn.
“We’re focusing on technology and finance and tax advisers,” he said.
The focus of the joint agency trip, among other things, he said, is to promote a region that has a highly diversified population from multiple places in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the utility of three international airports and seaports within a three-county region.
“We try not to lean into the political stuff,” Miller added. “New York City is New York City. At the end of the day we are not going to make a big dent. New York City is a financial capital of the world and I don’t see that changing.”