Florida destination for businesses
Legions of companies migrated to state as COVID-19 rolled on
While COVID-19 remains a lingering threat, there appears to be no end in sight for the corporate relocation and expansion boom it fostered in Florida.
Two years after the pandemic’s start in early 2020, the wave of companies from the Northeast, Midwest, California and Texas looking to move to the state’s major metropolitan regions is accelerating as they search for friendlier business climates, more space, less red tape and lower operating costs.
“All parts of the Sunshine State have been firing on all cylinders with respect to economic development activity,” said relocation consultant John Boyd of The Boyd Company in Boca Raton. “Obviously Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade have done very well attracting new banking, financial services and technology companies.”
Business development specialists in Florida haven’t been shy about promoting their parts of the state to would-be migrants.
“Never let a crisis go to waste,” said Aundra Wallace, president of JaxUSA Partnership, the economic development arm for Jacksonville and a surrounding region encompassing seven counties.
“It’s kind of been a motto. We understand what’s going on, but we’re going to be aggressive, work with companies and help them.”
As measured by office leasing demand, the spike in relocations has focused mainly in South Florida and Tampa, but less so in Orlando and Jacksonville, said Marc Miller, senior associate for research in Florida for CBRE, the real estate services firm.
“For years there was more hype around it than needle-moving activity,” he said. “Since COVID, particularly in 2021, that’s when it started to ramp and it’s still continuing into 2022.”
An eye test of company movements suggests that Miami-Dade is attracting the heaviest volume of companies. But in some instances firms are spreading out among cities across county lines, setting up a headquarters in one place while building a manufacturing operation in another.
Here is a snapshot of what types of companies that some major metropolitan areas have attracted since the pandemic broke out in March 2020.
Brevard County
Space launches and defense are the bread and butter of Florida’s Space Coast.
So it’s no surprise that one of the biggest arrivals of last year was Terran Orbital, a satellite maker that says it will employ 2,100 people by 2025 to build commercial spacecraft in Merritt Island.
“I think down the road we will see companies tied to satellite development,” said Lynda Weatherman, president and CEO, Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast. “We were simply a launch site not that long ago.
“This whole industry expanded from launch to the development of launch vehicles. Now we’re developing payloads.”
The Space Coast also won the hand of an arms maker, Dark Storm, that left New York for Florida. The company’s decision, she said, “had to do with having the right site. We had a good competitive package and I think it’s the legacy of our manufacturing economy we have here too.”
Overall, recruiting has picked up again since 2020.
“Our activity list slowed down a little bit,” when COVID started, Weatherman said. “Now it’s accelerated again. A lot centered around our biggest competitive advantage: aerospace, space and avionics.”
Orange County
Tom Giuliani, president and CEO of the Orlando Economic Partnership, said “cabin fever COVID moves” have not been the sole reason for companies locating to Central Florida, home to Disney World and an associated enclave of sprawling entertainment destinations.
“That’s not the bulk of what we’re experiencing,” he said. “A number of these projects were in process when the pandemic started. Some companies went on pause.”
But in May 2020 “people started moving forward on things.” Since then there have been 54 relocation projects yielding 8,899 jobs and $1.6 billion in capital investment, he said.
Disney is the headliner relocation story, with most of its Parks, Experiences and Products professional roles based in California moving to Lake Nona, bringing as many as 2,000 jobs.
“They’re bringing a divisional headquarters here, but the heart of the creative element of Disney is coming here as well,” Giuliani said.
Entertainment is not the region’s only employment source.
A semiconductor company, Skywater Technology, moved to the area and brought 250 jobs from Minnesota.
“We’ve been working for 10 years to get semiconductor manufacturing into the area,” Giuliani said, citing the involvement
of the state, county and University of Central Florida.
Another company, Red 6, an in-flight training company for military pilots from California, is an example of a firm that picked two Florida cities instead of one. Orlando is the technology hub, while corporate headquarters is in Miami.
The company’s presence has exposed an employment trend not usually associated with Orlando.
“More people are employed in professional services and business and technology than entertainment,” Giuliani said. “That’s a big story.”
Miami-Dade County
Amid the media hype and conferences focusing on Bitcoin, uninitiated visitors to Miami might think it’s all cryptocurrency all the time. But in a recent annual report for 2021 the city of Miami’s Downtown Development Authority said it tracked more than 100 companies of various stripes that established a presence in the city “or announced their intention to do so over the past year.”
“New-to-market” firms include financial and technology companies that are expected to create more than 5,000 jobs and occupy more than a half-million square feet of real estate. The firms include Blackstone, CI Financial, Zumper, Thoma Bravo, eToro, BlockTower Capital, Marathon Asset Management, Boston Private, Spotify, ShiftPixy, Atomic and Point72.
Kevin Ruiz, strategic business development director for Venture Miami, said there has been a sweeping joint effort, including the office of Miami Mayor Frances Suarez, the Beacon Council, the
county’s economic development arm, among others, to promote the city and metro area.
James Kohnstamm, executive vice president of economic development for the Beacon Council, just returned from a road show in New York designed to bring in more financial and technology firms.
“From our perspective, it continues a trend that was rising from the movement of businesses and talent before COVID,” he said. “They were looking at Miami before the pandemic.”
The attraction, according to Kohnstamm: “We are the most diverse and international city of our size, not only in Florida but in the country.”
Attorney Jaret Davis, who is a member of a relocation task force at the Greenberg Traurig law firm in Miami, said companies that took an initial look at the city liked the favorable tax treatment compared with cities in other states. But when they took a closer look “they were impressed by the talent landscape and the energy of the city.”
“The city reminds them of Silicon Valley 20 or 30 years ago,” he said.
And there is a surge in companies supporting the crypto rage, what Davis sees as being akin to the 1849 gold rush in California. From an all-time high of $68,990, Bitcoin was trading at $28,569.25 on Friday after falling below $26,000 on Thursday for the first time in 16 months.
Despite the dramatic fluctuations Davis is bullish on the alt currency.
“The city is becoming one of the true hubs of Blockchain activity” he said, referring to the digital ledger system that keeps track of accounts. “The entire premise is freedom and activity.
“Miami has a strong ethos of that.”