For people in the highly competitive economic development business, it would seem to be daunting when a billionaire in a neighboring county announces a $2 billion gift to start a college campus for one of the nation’s most prestigious universities — just 16 miles down the road.
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That’s how development leaders in Broward County could have taken it when Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, in the company of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, declared that Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh will establish a southern foothold in the City of Miami’s burgeoning Wynwood section. Griffin, who moved his financial firm to Miami from Chicago in 2022, is donating a total of $3 billion to the university for projects in South Florida and Pennsylvania.
Instead, economic development specialists see an upside for Broward County, as well as its northern neighbor, Palm Beach County; they see opportunities for the formation of fresh talent, new business and expanded philanthropy.
“All three counties are doing incredibly well,” Bob Swindell, CEO and president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday. “This whole perception that Broward is being skipped over is a perception that is not reality.”
“If we position ourselves as an innovation corridor similar to what Silicon Valley has, we can really build on that,” he said.
Broward’s northern neighbor, Palm Beach County, is doing well largely because of the efforts of another billionaire, Palm Beach developer Stephen Ross, owner of the Miami Dolphins and CEO of Related Ross, which is driving a total makeover of downtown West Palm Beach.
Ross spearheaded the impending buildout of a business school campus for another nationally known institution of higher education: Vanderbilt University of Nashville, Tennessee.
Both Griffin and Ross have been delivering millions more in grants and donations for schools and medical facilities in their respective communities.
“Ken Griffin just made the biggest bet on higher education in American history, and he made it in South Florida,” Kelly Smallridge, president and CEO of the Business Development Board of the Palm Beaches, said in an emailed statement to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “Our market is on fire. Florida Atlantic University is putting a quantum computer on its campus. Vanderbilt is building a graduate campus in downtown West Palm Beach.”
A regional play
“Scripps and Max Planck are doing world-class science in Jupiter, and Palm Beach State College is training the technicians every one of these companies will need. Add the University of Miami, FIU, Keiser and Nova Southeastern, and this region now has more brainpower per square mile than it has parking spaces,” she added. “That’s how you build a talent market that Boston and Austin will have to take seriously.”
In fact, the Miami/South Florida market ranked No. 13 out of 100 metropolitan areas in an annual survey of technology talent for 2025 conducted by JLL, the commercial real estate firm. The ranking was a single tick up over 2024.
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There was a time when Broward was the home of one of the most prolific billionaire entrepreneurs in the nation, H. Wayne Huizenga. The Midwest native migrated to South Florida and quickly developed a stable of consumer-service companies that generated outsized economic activity in both employment and philanthropy. They included Alamo Rent-a-Car, AutoNation, Blockbuster Video and Waste Management, among other enterprises.
Huizenga, who died in 2018, also brought the professional Florida Panthers hockey club and Florida Marlins baseball team to the area, simultaneously owning both teams and the NFL’s Miami Dolphins during the 1990s.
He and his late wife Marti, became the Community Foundation of Broward’s first founding benefactors, and established endowments including the Huizenga Fund for Children, which still distributes grants to organizations such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of Broward County and Junior Achievement of South Florida. Huizenga Park in downtown Fort Lauderdale was named to salute their legacy.
As time wore on and South Florida’s population grew to more than 6 million people, other well-endowed businesspeople moved to the area in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing wealth levels and the presence of sophisticated finance and technology firms to new heights.
Swindell, Smallridge and Jennifer O’Flannery Anderson, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Broward, all see an upside as more dollars flow into the region and wealthy people like Griffin and Ross open their wallets.
Broward isn’t short on gifting by the rich, although O’Flannery Anderson would like to see growth from recently arrived residents who have moved to Florida seeking relief from states with burdensome personal and corporate income taxes.
O’Flannery Anderson said that over time, The Jim Moran Foundation, formed in memory of the late auto dealer-entrepreneur Jim Moran, and the Frederick A. DeLuca Foundation, named after the co-founder of Subway restaurant chain, are strong backers of an array of grant programs.
“Our community foundations of all three counties are very, very strong and vibrant community foundations,” she told the Sun Sentinel on Friday. “Each of them has built up strong endowments. They have donors that are grant making.”
She noted that “all three of us work together” and communicate frequently.”
‘Good for all of us’
Swindell said he called Roderick Miller, president and CEO of the Beacon Council, Miami-Dade County’s economic development arm, to congratulate him on the Carnegie Mellon development.
“The first thing Rod said was it is good for all of us,” Swindell recalled.
“South Florida is maturing,” Swindell added. “I would say South Florida is one of the highest sought-after business destinations in the country. Broward is at the center of all that. If you want to build you’ve got to build at the center. We position ourselves as a hub for all of that. Our three counties have unique personalities and I think that is a really positive thing.”
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