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Southeast Florida's economic forecast for 2025

2025 Forecast

Track Club

The closing of Palm Beach International Raceway left a hole in Florida for car enthusiasts. P1 Motor Club aims to fill it as “the world’s pinnacle motorsports community.” A country club built around racing, it will have residences, garage condos, road, kart and off-road tracks, an R&D building and club amenities on 650 acres in St. Lucie County. The club initiation fee is $168,000. A founding partner, Al Guibord, said P1 expects to break ground this year.

  • CLEANING SERVICES

Tom Scalera

President & CEO, Stanley Steemer South Florida, Delray Beach

Tom Scalera worked his way up from truck mechanic to buy the local franchise with his brothers in 1999. They expanded and, as of Jan. 1, took over the Broward and Miami- Dade branches. “It’s not just carpet cleaning anymore. We do so many services. We do tile and grout, fire restoration, mold restoration. We’ll be a $25-million company real soon in the South Florida market.” He employed 60 before adding the South Florida branches and 40 employees.

WORKFORCE: “We’re probably just under meeting what we need. We create opportunities for people who don’t have college educations. We do a lot of advertising. I carry my card with me all the time. We have employees making over $100,000 a year in the service field.”

CHALLENGES/BRIGHT SPOTS: “It’s not been a great year for the consumer. We’ll finish up or flat and I’ll take it. (2025) is going to be a very good year.”

“With the influx of more people is more competition. They come here with their own companies or open their own companies. Pleasing the customer is what got us our growth. Integrity to me is the key to our business. And caring.”

  • RV SALES

Jon Ferrando

Founder, CEO, Blue Compass RV, Fort Lauderdale

RV dealer Blue Compass employs 250 at eight Florida stores and 3,000 company-wide in its 100-store, 33-state operation.

GROWTH MODE? “We want to grow the business 10% to 20% next year. We had significant growth during COVID in the RV business. The last couple years have been more challenging. We saw higher interest rates and lower consumer confidence and inflation. We see a much brighter 2025. The industry is in good balance. With the Fed lowering interest rates, that should be a positive tailwind for our industry.”

WORKFORCE: “We’ll be very focused on not only developing and promoting our associates already at Blue Compass but also attracting new associates. We work really hard at promoting our brand and who we are with our culture. We have training for our associates — whether it’s technicians, sales or leadership roles. There’s a shortage of technicians in the RV industry. It’s a constant area of focus to identify people.”

Soaring High

As CEO of STS Aviation, a company with operations around the world, P.J. Anson Jr. can put Florida in a global context. “I see Florida as one of the hottest aviation markets anywhere,” Anson says.

Aerospace and aviation were seen as an “emerging sector” in Southeast Florida in an economic development strategy study released last year by business executive group, the Florida Council of 100. It’s a sector, all right, but hardly emerging. Aviation’s been big in southeast Florida since the days of the Pan Am Clipper ships taking off on Biscayne Bay. The region long has held headquarters for major employers like Heico and low-cost pioneer Spirit Airlines, plus engine maker Pratt & Whitney, rocket-engine maker Aerojet Rocketdyne and a slew of others.

The region’s aviation bona fides, particularly as a hub for maintenance, repair and overhaul companies, showed in October at the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance’s annual meeting where it was announced aviation companies Xtreme Aviation, Ontic, Aerothurst and ARC 145 would hire a total of nearly 600 for MRO work.

Jensen Beach-based STS employs 1,200 in Florida. STS is the largest provider of line maintenance — the ground crews you see hustling around your plane before it departs — and also refits plane interiors, does parts supply and is an industry employment platform.

“We’re looking at a pretty robust next five years,” Anson says. “We’re bullish.”

  • MARINE

Roger Moore

CEO, boat retailer Nautical Ventures, Fort Lauderdale

OUTLOOK: “We’re very optimistic about what we see ahead of us, and we’re very happy to put 2024 behind us. We’re up about 10% in sales in 2024. We’re pretty proud of that, but it’s been a difficult year. I created a little document that I call the compilation list. I’ve taken the reports that appear in all of these trade magazines. It is rather overwhelming to see how broadly the marine industry has been affected.

“But with the interest rates coming down now, the election will be behind us, and I believe that inventories in the field are reducing. So I think we’ll come back to a more normal level, maybe pre-COVID levels, in 2025 and ’26.”

WORKFORCE: “We’ve actually reduced our workforce by about 10% because we really got sort of heavy through the COVID period. As we continue our growth pattern, we see that we can bring in better talent, good talent.”

Vanderbilt’s Florida Campus

West Palm Beach’s star-crossed journey to landing a major university presence downtown took a step toward reality last year after the city, county and Vanderbilt University inked a deal for the prestigious private university to open a business and tech graduate school campus on seven acres of government-donated land worth $60 million. The city and the University of Florida had a plan in 2021 for a downtown campus but UF, which received $100 million in state funding, bailed in 2023. Vandy says courses will focus on MBAs, engineering, artificial intelligence, data science and computer science. Vanderbilt has five years to break ground but 12 months to produce a master plan for the campus.

Business Briefs

BROWARD COUNTY

  • GL Commercial wants to build a 250,000-sq.-ft. flight training and simulator center with a 300-room hotel in Sunrise. GL is part of GL Homes.
  • Brooklyn-based developer Dependable Equities plans its 43-story, 775-unit Ombelle Fort Lauderdale condo on Northeast Third Avenue in Flagler Village north of downtown Fort Lauderdale with prices starting in the $400,000s.
  • With the scheduled opening in late fall of a 29-story, 801-room Omni Fort Lauderdale Hotel at the Broward County Convention Center — the largest hotel in Fort Lauderdale by room count and third in the county behind the Diplomat and Seminole Hard Rock — the county completes its multiyear, $1.3-billion expansion and renovation project for the center. Since 2021, it’s added 350,000 square feet of space, taking the center to 1.2 million square feet, counting an amphitheater and plaza.
  • Dania Beach in south Broward will see a total of 1,630 residential units if all projects under way or on the drawing board come to fruition.
  • The Seminole Tribe of Florida settled a legal fight with a Miami and a Lee County gambling concern which objected to the tribe’s exclusive deal with the state to offer online sports betting. The tribe agreed to offer jai alai on its betting app to gamblers.
  • North Miami-based IMC Equity Group wants to add 233 apartments to its Lauderhill Mall retail center.
  • Miami developers Jimmy Tate, Related Group and Rok Acquisitions plan to break ground early in 2026 on their $2-billion redevelopment of the 40-acre Bahia Mar on Fort Lauderdale’s beach into The St. Regis Resort and Residences, Bahia Mar Fort Lauderdale. Completion of the first phase, 160 condos in two, 23-story towers, a 197-key hotel and resort residences, would be in 2029. The developers want to turn the marina into a “Monacoinspired yachter’s paradise.” They also will build a pedestrian promenade. The condos start at $4.4 million and the resort residences at $2 million.
  • AIDS Healthcare Foundation paid Balaji Investments $17 million for a 150-room Days Inn on Broward Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale and will convert it into workforce housing. Colliers represented the seller and Marcus & Millichap represented the foundation.

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY

  • Vero Beach voters by 65% to 35% rejected a plan to increase residential density downtown. The measure would have allowed 36 units per acre, up from 17. Residential units downtown would be capped at 1,800. The aim was to encourage downtown living, particularly workforce housing. The vote flowed from a city master plan approved in July after a study done by famed community-design guru Andres Duany, whom the city hired to help plan the future of downtown. Duany recommended the city allow 60 units per acre and cap units at 2,500, but the City Council scaled that back as unlikely to win voter approval. Vero is famously protective of its existing development rules. In 2002, Vero voters refused to let Trinity Episcopal Church have an exemption to a 50-foot height limit for a 58-foot steeple and cross it wanted to put atop its 50-foothigh church.

MARTIN COUNTY

  • Martin County voters decided to raise money for land preservation by increasing the local sales tax by a half cent to 7% to raise $18 million a year for 10 years. The money will go toward 46,000 acres of environmentally sensitive sites. The measure passed 64% to 36%. According to state data, prior to the vote 27.6% of Martin County, 95,559 acres, already was preserved as conservation land.

OKEECHOBEE COUNTY

  • Developer Adam Ramsay’s and partners’ Park Street Commerce Center project, a 16-acre, mixed-use development on the north side of State Road 70 less than a mile east of downtown Okeechobee, will host a Culver’s and a car wash and has three lots available. “The Park Street Commerce Center represents a significant milestone for the City of Okeechobee, not only by boosting our local economy but also by creating new job opportunities for our residents. Our team is excited for the diverse businesses this development will attract while fostering workforce growth and enhancing the quality of life in our community, positioning Okeechobee as a vibrant center for economic activity and community engagement,” says Alex Tijerina, director of existing Industry, Okeechobee County Economic Development Corp.

PALM BEACH COUNTY

  • Lockheed Martin acquired Boca Raton-based satellite company Terran Orbital for $450 million.
  • The Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Residences in Boca Raton is expected to open in 2025 after an eight-year delay. It was originally slated to open in 2017.
  • Private equity firm Fortress Investment Group took a majority stake in Boca Raton-based Airspan Networks, a 5G software and hardware producer. Airspan came out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June.
  • Woodmont Industrial Partners, Butters Construction & Development and real estate investment firm PCCP completed a 303,364-sq.-ft. industrial facility, the first of eight buildings they plan at the 1,300-acre Palm Beach Park of Commerce. Woodmont also is building over the next three years 2.1 million square feet in 14 buildings in Fort Myers.
  • Developer Stephen Ross’ Related Ross saw One Flagler office tower tenant move-ins in November as it finishes that project. It will continue work in 2025 on its 108-unit South Flagler House condo project and its massive office towers, 10 and 15 City Place, that total around 980,000 square feet and are the largest project underway in the city. Related Ross also plans a second hotel at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in downtown West Palm Beach. It will have 420 rooms.
  • Miami-based Related Group, a different company, and BH Group plan a 144-unit Ritz-Carlton condo on the Intracoastal in West Palm Beach.
  • Boca Raton-based CP Group plans a 117,000-sq.-ft. office building at Town Center Mall in Boca Raton.
  • The Palm Beach North Athletic Foundation plans to break ground this summer for its Palm Beach Gardens ice skating facility. As of October, it had raised $10 million toward the $40-million, 123,000-sq.-ft. project being developed with the city. Backers include Larry Robbins and NHL great Wayne Gretzky. Opening is scheduled for summer 2026. It will include two NHL rinks for youth hockey, figure skating, adult leagues, curling and sled hockey, plus a restaurant and store. The foundation, headed by Michael Winter, will manage it.
  • Developers Terra and Palm Beach-based Sympatico Real Estate started demolition at 320 Lakeview Avenue in West Palm Beach in preparation for building a Mr. C Hotel & Residences West Palm Beach, a 27-story project with 110 hotel keys and 146 condos.
  • BD Hotels, NDT Development, Place Projects and Wheelock Street Capital broke ground on The Nora Hotel, a 201-key boutique hotel in West Palm Beach.

ST. LUCIE COUNTY

  • Costco will move major distribution up from Palm Beach County to 1.87 million square feet of warehouse space under construction at Sansone Group’s Legacy Park in Tradition in Port St. Lucie where it eventually will employ 500.
  • A tornado from Hurricane Milton destroyed Atlanta-based Stonemont Financial Group’s 1.1-million-sq.-ft. South Florida Logistics Center 95 warehouse distribution building in Fort Pierce seven months after its completion. “Stonemont is in the process of assessing the damage and repairs needed to the facility,” said Heather Keisler, Stonemont’s marketing coordinator, in late October. A second, 245,000-sq.-ft. building at the center was unharmed. It was developed by Stonemont but sold to cruise industry provisioner Apollo Group for goods storage for servicing ports at Canaveral and Southeast Florida.