As Featured in Forbes: Fort Lauderdale’s Bold Evolution

June 25, 2025

In this edition of the FTL Focus, we’re thrilled to highlight a new feature on Fort Lauderdale’s evolution from Forbes titled "Florida’s Spring Break Capital Is Now Its Newest Luxury Real Estate And Financial Hotspot.”

Today’s investment is reshaping Fort Lauderdale’s skyline and identity, creating a bold, unique city for the future.

This comprehensive deep-dive into our city’s growth announced to the world what we already know: that Fort Lauderdale is “one of America’s most dynamic and unexpected urban success stories, literally from the ground up.”

Fort Lauderdale as a rising global city.

As a regional hub with the infrastructure, connectivity, and vision to support bold growth, Fort Lauderdale is stepping confidently onto the global stage.

Where luxury meets connectivity, DowntownFTL’s waterfront continues to attract world-class developers and visionaries, drawn by a city that’s more connected, accessible, and globally appealing than ever.

“As both a city in itself and a hub for the region, Fort Lauderdale has always had the innate geographic, ecological, and economic assets to step out from Miami’s shadow and stand on its own as a global city: including world-class beaches, an international yachting culture, first-rate infrastructure, well-connected transport systems, five times more inland waterways than Venice, and Port Everglades, the third busiest cruise ship port on earth.

Momentum driven by long-term trends.

Fort Lauderdale’s growth isn’t a passing trend — it’s the result of a decades-long vision finally hitting its stride. Unlike the boom-and-bust cycles seen elsewhere, our city’s momentum is rooted in long-term planning, making today’s excitement the product of deliberate progress toward a more livable, vibrant, and globally appealing city.

A creative hub in the making. The future FAT Village is set to transform DowntownFTL with modern spaces, public art, and a vibrant energy designed for innovators, makers, and the community.”

“All of this makes Fort Lauderdale’s current bullishness even more exceptional because the forces underpinning it aren’t being driven by Florida’s frequent predilection for opportunism and myopia. As a result, while the real estate frenzy in other Sunshine State cities like Tampa and Orlando is finally climbing down from pandemic highs, Fort Lauderdale is still attracting national and international developers who would have never played in the sandbox here before — especially at the highest ends of the market.”

Is this a moment or a movement?

The investment being realized today is doing more than reshaping the skyline — it’s redefining Fort Lauderdale’s identity. With every new development, the city is becoming not a version of somewhere else, but a place entirely its own — shaped by bold ideas, diverse industries, and a growing belief in what Fort Lauderdale can be for the next generation.

In the heart of downtown, Viceroy Residences embodies the bold energy shaping Fort Lauderdale’s next chapter — a city growing with intention, identity, and confidence in its future.

“What’s happening in Fort Lauderdale right now reflects a collective confidence about the future that people here haven’t felt for decades. The city’s new developments are bold and visionary, but they’re also smart and forward-thinking. The new skyline isn’t just about height. It’s about identity. And as more developers, celebrity chefs, big-name financial firms, and tech start-ups buy in here, they’re not transforming Fort Lauderdale into the next Miami. They’re helping to shape it into something new entirely.”

Explore the full Forbes feature here.