Rex Hardin, Mayor, City of Pompano Beach

May 2026 — Invest: sat down with Rex Hardin, mayor of the City of Pompano Beach, to discuss the city’s future, from a new City Hall and a long-planned downtown to mobility, housing, and the fundamentals of municipal finance. “There’s a tremendous amount going on in Pompano Beach,” Hardin said.

What have been some of the most important developments for Pompano Beach over the past year?

Probably the most important development has been moving forward with our new City Hall. We’ve selected a design, and we’re relocating City Hall from where it currently sits to a corner of our future downtown in the city of Pompano Beach.

We’re moving forward with the plans to create our downtown, and City Hall is the anchor for the entire area. It shows the development community that we’re serious about developing our new downtown. We’re committed to it, and it’s an exciting proposition for the entire city.

A lot has happened in the past year. Out around the casino area, we’ve seen major industrial facilities constructed, and it’s been announced that a new Costco is going out on Powerline Road, so it’s been a whirlwind in Pompano.

We’ve also had continued momentum on major hospitality projects. The Ritz-Carlton and Waldorf Astoria are still under construction, and the W has announced that they’re going to start construction this year and are actively moving forward with that. Because of the popularity of our beachside amenities, we’re also poised to build a new parking garage in our beach area. There’s a tremendous amount going on in Pompano Beach.

What are the most pressing economic priorities the city is focused on?

The most pressing economic priorities are always budgetary issues. We’ve got more infrastructure issues that we need to pay for than we have funds to pay for, and that’s part of the process.

Day-to-day, we still have to make sure streets are paved and infrastructure is maintained, and that all comes down to dollars. It’s a real balancing act to make sure that we remain competitive in South Florida as far as tax rates. We’ve been very fortunate to keep our tax rates in the lower third or lower half of other cities in Broward County, but we still need to fund major improvements.

We’re still working through improvements that were funded through a general obligation bond we passed a few years ago, so we still have projects that are being completed via that. Each year at budget time, we have to make sure we’re not taking more of the taxpayer dollars than we need to, but we also have to adequately fund operations because residents expect a certain level of service in the city of Pompano Beach. We never want to sacrifice what we deliver to the public, but it takes dollars, so it’s a balancing act.

How is Pompano Beach positioning itself to attract high-value industries?

We’re targeting key industries and well-paying jobs. Around the casino area, we’ve got a large industrial component that was just developed. The developer has targeted industries that are high-end, and those jobs are a big part of how we strengthen the local economy.

We’re also trying to position ourselves as not just a great resort town. We’ve developed our beach area, but we’re working to attract larger corporations, and our future downtown plays a role in that too. It helps tell the market that Pompano Beach has a downtown and a place where corporate investment can land.

And we have a major advantage: Pompano Beach is the largest industrial base in Broward County. Industrial property is golden for jobs, and jobs are the lifeblood of a city. Making sure people can get jobs so they can afford to live here is central to everything else we’re trying to accomplish.

What is the city’s approach to housing and mobility?

We’re built out, so housing is focused on redevelopment more than anything else. Years ago, we went through the city and identified major corridors where we wanted to focus redevelopment, specifically for residential purposes.

Traffic is a huge issue in South Florida, and we need to get people out of their cars and make it so people don’t need cars for every trip. We’ve focused our zoning to keep people on our major corridors so they can use mass transit and transportation options, and so they won’t need a car to get around in Pompano Beach.

Housing is sky-high in South Florida, and it’s not just a local challenge, it’s a nationwide issue. We’ve targeted affordable housing so we have a range of options. On the beach, you’ll see million-dollar-plus condos, but as you move west, prices come down. We still need more housing in addition to everything else, and we’ve used customized zoning to encourage development along corridors while supporting mobility goals.

Mobility is also tied to long-range planning. The train tracks run right through the middle of our city, and eventually we plan to have a train stop here in Pompano Beach. The vision is that someone can live in an apartment or condo on Atlantic Boulevard, walk downstairs, take a bus or Circuit microtransit to the station, then get on the train and go south to Miami or north to Palm Beach County for work. That’s the dream, and it’s getting closer as projects move forward.

Looking ahead, how do you envision Pompano Beach positioned within the larger South Florida economy over the next five to 10 years?

We’ve worked long and hard to make Pompano Beach more accessible and easier to do business with, from our building department to zoning and development services. That’s a process we intend to keep improving.

The next five to 10 years, though, are really about downtown. South Florida is built out, and a lot of beach-area redevelopment happens through buying older properties, knocking them down, and repackaging them into higher-end product. Downtown gives us a different kind of opportunity. Over more than 30 years, the city accumulated large parcels of property, and now we’re ready to put that on the market and bring in partners through a competitive process.

That’s what’s going to propel Pompano Beach. It gives investors a place to invest in a way that’s broader than industrial-only or beach redevelopment, and it creates a serious downtown that can change the economics of our city for the better.

Change scares people, and when things start happening residents pay attention and can be frightened, especially when they’ve lived here for generations. We’ve worked through that before. The beach area used to be a sleepy retirement community with little commercial activity. Redeveloping it was difficult at times because people were scared, but now people rave about it. That experience matters as we move into the next phase.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I like to focus on residents, because that’s why we do what we do. The downtown plans and the beach transformation didn’t happen by accident. They happened through deliberate efforts and community engagement, listening to what people wanted to see happen.

If you listen only to the same small group that shows up at every city commission meeting, you’ll never get anything done. You have to talk to the broad spectrum of residents who live here. That’s who has really driven the transformation of Pompano Beach, wanting more for their city, while still keeping it like a hometown.