Real estate magnate Stephen Ross sees Palm Beach County becoming akin to Silicon Valley, filled with technology and engineering professionals, including those fleeing California’s high taxes, he told a small group in Palm Beach on Jan. 14.
At an event hosted by Bloomberg at the Brazilian Court hotel, Ross spoke about West Palm Beach’s rising status as a “model city,” even as he remained largely silent about his Miami Dolphins soccer team, which had just finished a losing season.
The exceptions: Ross said he was offered $15 billion for the team, which he turned down; and he has one key requirement for a new head coach: “I am interested in one win coach,” Ross told a reporter after his on-stage speech.
Here are four things Ross said to the Palm Beach group about his plans for Palm Beach County:
Ross said he envisions the county becoming the new version of Silicon Valley. “I believe it will happen, and it will be here in Palm Beach County,” he said.
The key to creating this reality is an environment where engineers and entrepreneurs want to live and start the next generation of businesses.
Once these start-up companies gain traction, they will in turn attract venture capital firms willing to invest in them and help them grow, he said.
Ross said California’s high cost of living, combined with regulations, has already driven businesses out of the state.
Now there’s a new reason for tech leaders to leave: a proposed tax on billionaires.
“That scares everyone out there,” he said.
Florida, on the other hand, has many advantages, including a business-friendly environment and no income tax.
But to make West Palm Beach even more attractive to businesses, Ross said he knows the city needs progress in education and health care.
“You’ve never seen a place grow without a great university,” Ross says, citing Stanford University’s presence in San Francisco as a catalyst for that community.
That’s why Ross said he helped broker a deal to attract Nashville-based Vanderbilt University to build a graduate business school in downtown West Palm Beach.
On Jan. 12, Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier announced that the private school had raised the $300 million needed to build the downtown school. Ross contributed $50 million for the campus.
The Nashville-based private university, which will open its campus in fall 2029, will feature degrees in business management, finance and engineering.
More: Vanderbilt secures financing for the West Palm Beach campus
More: AI heavyweight ServiceNow will lease half of the new CityPlace office tower in the WPB expansion
The university’s presence will also complement the upcoming arrival of a large office of ServiceNow, a Silicon Valley-based AI software company that plans to hire up to 850 people in West Palm Beach.
Ross also highlighted the expected growth of work associated with the defense industry, noting that numerous defense contractors already do business in Palm Beach County.
He also pointed out that Vanderbilt already has unique programs on defense. These include research in cybersecurity and defense technology.
As part of building a model city, Ross said West Palm Beach also needs “a great hospital, or at least a very good hospital. We don’t have that.”
That’s why he said he helped pave the way for the Ohio-based Cleveland Clinic to open a hospital in downtown West Palm Beach.
“We found the site and started the campaign,” he said.
Ross said the nonprofit Cleveland Clinic plans to build a new 200-bed hospital, plus a cancer center.
“It will be a first-class hospital, just like in London or Abu Dhabi,” he said.
Ross personally gave $50 million for the hospital.
Downtown West Palm Beach now has another hospital: Good Samaritan Medical Center, owned by the profitable Tenet Healthcare of Texas.
Alexandra Clough covers business and real estate for The Palm Beach Post. She can be reached at aclough@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Stephen Ross is trying to turn Palm Beach County into Silicon Valley
