Faceoff: How business leaders are guiding Fort Lauderdale’s growth

Key points:

• • Growth pressures, infrastructure, and insurance reform are reshaping Fort Lauderdale’s business climate.
• • The Live Local Act is accelerating affordable and mixed-use development across South Florida.
• • Legal strategy, risk management, and cautious AI adoption are becoming central to investment decisions.

April 2026 — Fort Lauderdale‘s business climate is being reshaped by population pressure, tightening insurance conditions, and legal reforms that are changing how projects are structured and investments are evaluated across South Florida.

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While expansion continues to drive the region’s trajectory, demographic growth is beginning to slow. Florida added nearly 200,000 residents between 2024 and 2025, keeping it among the most populous states, though the pace has moderated compared to prior years.

The region’s sustained population gains are placing pressure on housing availability, transportation networks, and public infrastructure, while supporting demand across real estate, tourism, and logistics. In response, the ongoing implementation of the Live Local Act is influencing development patterns by streamlining approvals for projects that incorporate affordable housing, with more than 12,600 units in fully and partially affordable buildings currently under construction across South Florida.
Infrastructure and logistics are also playing a more central role in economic activity. Port Everglades moves more than 1 million TEUs annually, while Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is expanding passenger and cargo capacity, supporting marine and freight activity with spillover effects across insurance, legal services, and supply chain operations.

The operating environment is shifting, too. Legislative changes aimed at reducing excessive litigation are beginning to stabilize Florida’s insurance market, easing pressure on rates across property and casualty lines and influencing underwriting conditions. Professional services firms are taking a more measured approach to AI, weighing efficiency gains against potential risks.

For those tracking Fort Lauderdale business news, the signals are converging: infrastructure capacity, insurance reform, and legal strategy are increasingly central to how the region competes.

Invest: spoke with professional services leaders to understand how infrastructure, insurance, legal frameworks, and technology factor into investment decisions and risk across Broward.

What is having the biggest impact on how projects and investments are being evaluated today?

Sidney Calloway: Two factors are shaping the environment. First, state action aimed at housing affordability has changed the development playbook. The Live Local Act, in particular, has become a meaningful tool for projects that include affordable housing. It can reduce the time and cost associated with local entitlements that, historically, required significant capital and patience to navigate.

As a result, developers are placing more emphasis on projects that can move forward under that framework, including mixed-use concepts and conversions of commercial or industrial sites. Our role is to help clients understand what the law allows, where local processes still matter, and how to structure projects to minimize risk while staying on schedule.

Second, we are also seeing stronger activity beyond housing. Since the second and third quarters of last year, work has been more robust across South Florida, including office development and continued momentum in the condominium market.

Mike Colodny: There has been a lot of activity in the insurance area, and discussion around rates, affordability, and rate adequacy. The general consensus, across homeowners, auto, and commercial lines, is that rates have been coming down.

A big driver goes back to legislation from a couple years ago that addressed what I would call irresponsible litigation. There’s always responsible litigation, but it’s the irresponsible litigation that raises rates. The statistics on litigation have come down drastically, and that affects the overall pricing environment.

We’ve also become very involved in marine insurance, including work for marine insurers and cargo carriers. The supply chain faces difficult hurdles, and adequate insurance and liability coverage are part of that conversation. Those issues are always evolving, but we’re in one of the better phases that we’ve been in for a long time.

How are major infrastructure assets shaping economic activity in the region?

Calloway: The port and the airport are central to the region’s long-term strategy. The airport’s growth over the last decade reflects planning decisions made many years earlier, and that is the lesson for today’s infrastructure choices: capacity and connectivity have to be built ahead of demand.

Florida’s population growth remains a major pressure point. That means infrastructure must support quality of life and workforce access, while also ensuring industries can move products, goods, and services. The encouraging part is the level of coordination. County leadership, business groups, port stakeholders, and tourism interests are increasingly aligned in planning and resource decisions.

Colodny: The growth of the marine and logistics industry is influencing our strategy and client base. It’s a vibrant segment of the economy, and it starts with the port. The port facility is a major asset for the region. The only thing that could have been better for the port is if it had more land, because it’s that active.

When you look at the hotels near U.S. 1 and the cruise industry, the economic impact is significant. If you look at the volume of goods that comes through the port, it’s remarkable. I heard a statistic that 80% of the concrete that comes into the state of Florida is directly relevant to Port Everglades.

Beyond cargo, the port supports jobs, logistics operations, tourism, and a long list of related businesses. It’s resilient, and it influences how we think about legal needs around insurance, liability, contracts, and the documentation behind supply chain operations.

We also see how South Florida functions as a commercial hub for neighboring markets. There’s a direct relationship between the Bahamas and Broward County, and we’ve looked closely at the economic impact of that connection.

What is supporting the region’s continued expansion and competitiveness?

Calloway: In Broward County, the focus is connectivity and competitiveness: moving people efficiently while also supporting the movement of goods and services that drive import, export, and regional growth. Marine-related opportunities are also rising, and that growth will require coordinated infrastructure investment, from waterfront access and freight movement to resilience planning that protects assets over time. We also see more partnership conversations tied to the workforce, including pathways for high-school students who want to enter the job market directly. Aligning education, training, and employer needs is becoming part of the regional competitiveness equation.

As underwriting tightens, the legal work becomes more sensitive to allocation of risk, timelines, performance requirements, and regulatory compliance. We help clients structure agreements that align incentives between public and private partners and anticipate friction points before they slow a project down.

Colodny: If you look at the Broward County Commission, unlike many other municipal legislative bodies, they meet with a quorum and they meet effectively. They’re not all on the same page, but they conduct themselves in a manner that’s responsible and productive.

One of the strengths here is clearly the administration. The county administrator and her staff are greatly attuned to everything, including transportation, parks, public safety, and more. That matters, because competent administration creates continuity, and continuity makes it easier to plan, execute, and sustain momentum.

It comes down to leadership and responsible people. When you have that, even disagreement can be constructive, because the process stays functional and focused on outcomes.

How are you approaching AI integration?

Calloway: One of the biggest shifts has been the legal industry’s rapid adoption of AI across practice areas. Law firms are getting more comfortable with the use of AI platforms. At the same time, the profession is working through how that use aligns with the rules and expectations that govern lawyers in Florida.

The conversation quickly moves past efficiency and into responsibility. Firms are building safeguards around confidentiality, accuracy, and fairness, and they are thinking through how AI-generated outputs fit within Florida Bar rules and courtroom practices. Early hesitation was often tied to those guardrails, particularly when lawyers were unsure how to protect privileged information, verify outputs, and avoid over-reliance on tools that can hallucinate or reflect bias. The pace has picked up as firms develop clearer standards for responsible use, including internal policies on what can be uploaded, how results are validated, and how AI use is supervised like any other work product.

Colodny: I probably have a more constrained view on this than some. My feeling is that the capabilities of AI and its applications are advancing, but it’s premature to rush into programs and implementations just because they’re available.

These tools have to be tested. They must fulfill the need and not create other questions. I think there’s too much of a rush to implement innovations before they’re worthwhile for the functions they’re supposed to handle.

Part of the challenge is that there’s a lot of competition and vendors, and it can be difficult to distinguish between what is useful and what is simply new. I think the market needs a step back, a clearer understanding of what works, what doesn’t, and where technology can genuinely improve outcomes.

AI can do a lot, but many users don’t need a lot. They need a refined, definitive, productive application of it.

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