Billionaire Stephen Ross aims to position Florida’s Palm Beach County as the next Silicon Valley, calling the region a more business-friendly environment for tech investors and executives than California.
A proposed tax on billionaires in California has led to fear among investors and shows the difficulty of doing business in the state, Ross said in an interview with Bloomberg News in Palm Beach Wednesday. He sees that as an advantage as he tries to build South Florida into a tech and finance hub.
“The venture capitalists kind of want to get out of California because of the restrictions that are there, the taxes, the cost of doing business there, the cost of living there — this is what’s really opened up opportunities for other states,” Ross said. Palm Beach County, meanwhile, is probably “one of the best places in America today, if not the best, to really do business.”
Attracting tech companies is part of a bigger vision for the Related Cos. founder, who moved to Palm Beach during the pandemic and has spent recent years developing West Palm Beach, the less glamorous midsized city across the intracoastal from the wealthy island town. Ross, 85, has launched ambitious office projects and luxury condos to transform the area, while attracting schools and hospitals to address broader livability issues.
Ross’ firm recently obtained the largest construction loan on record in Florida — a $772 million financing deal from Ares Management Corp. will go towards building 10 CityPlace and 15 CityPlace in West Palm Beach. The towers will add about 1 million square feet of office space to a city mostly known for small wealth managers and satellite offices.
Ross also has played a key role in luring Vanderbilt University to build a campus in West Palm Beach. He donated some $50 million toward the project, which will mostly serve graduate students in finance, engineering and technology.
“You can just feel in the air the growth that’s occurring here as the city is really developing,” said Ross, who also owns the Miami Dolphins. “And it’s developing because it has great political leadership and it wants to grow and it wants to be the kind of model city for the future in the country.”
He said that an “excellent K-12” school is set to announce a location in the region, without naming the institution.
Tech Challenges
While Ross is known for his role at Related Cos., the developer of projects including Manhattan’s Hudson Yards and Deutsche Bank Center, he stepped down from daily management in 2024 and launched Related Ross to focus on Palm Beach County. Much of that effort has centered on bringing finance companies and employees to the area, including firms like Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
But Ross has recently looked to growth from the tech community too. In September, Silicon Valley software giant ServiceNow Inc. agreed to expand to West Palm Beach, opening an office for several hundred employees in a planned tower being developed by his firm.
Ross said there’s major opportunity for defense technology, in particular. “South Florida has a real connection to the defense industry,” he said. “That will be a big growth factor here.”
Ross — who has a fortune of $15 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — said he expects to attract more “important, impactful” companies, pointing to the business environment in power centers such as California. A union in the state has introduced a ballot initiative that calls for a one-time 5% tax on residents with more than $1 billion in net worth — a move that has rankled executives and drawn opposition from Governor Gavin Newsom. It still needs to gain enough signatures to make the ballot and would need voter approval.
While Florida benefited from an exodus of California residents during the pandemic, the San Francisco Bay area remains the stronghold for the tech industry thanks to the artificial intelligence boom, a strong talent base and proximity to Stanford University. Ross said one of Palm Beach’s biggest challenges is marketing the area as a place that can attract young people.
“People look at Palm Beach as a place for your grandparents, you got to be realistic of what your obstacles are,” Ross said. “We’re doing everything to really create West Palm Beach as a place where young people want to be.”
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Read more articles by Natalie Wong, Anna J Kaiser, Caroline Gage
