Miami leaders shift focus to infrastructure, sustainable innovation
Writer: Mirella Franzese
July 2025 — Innovation and sustainable growth are part of the strategic vision for Miami’s long-term trajectory as rapid expansion and unchecked development highlight the urgent need for core new infrastructure, according to the region’s key business leaders.
In the last five years, Miami has experienced record population growth, which has led to the emergence of new business ecosystems, ranging from tech, talent, and education, to finance and innovation. These developments, while central to driving and catalyzing growth, now risk compromising long-term sustainability, panelists at Invest: Miami’s 10-year anniversary leadership summit said.
Zahir Dossa, professor at the University of Miami Herbert Business School; Paul Gabriele, tax partner at EisnerAmper; and Brian San Miguel, managing senior vice president and commercial banking executive at City National Bank joined the event to discuss the rising threat of unchecked development.
The conversation was moderated by Shutts & Bowen Executive Committee Chairman Francis Rodríguez, and presented by Hernandez Construction & Development CIO Navish Chawla, who attributed speculative development to the city’s rapid growth. “(Miami) is only one of the few markets in the country that is still the darling of spec development because of the city’s business, technology, logistics, pharmaceuticals, and financial services hub,” explained Chawla. “That’s what’s driving a lot of the growth in the market today.”
However, developers like Hernandez Construction & Development are now increasingly moving away from rapid expansion toward more sustainable models that support long-term stability and the local business community, which present newfound opportunities for overcoming pressing infrastructure challenges.
Resilient infrastructure needed
UMiami’s Dossa also highlighted the need for smarter, agile, and more resilient infrastructure as the city continues to attract a new influx of residents and businesses. Dossa said mobility remains a fundamental concern amid Miami’s limited public transit offerings and dependency on cars as the main mode of transportation.
And despite recent investments in transit, such as expanded bus networks and the future Silver Line commuter rail, persistent delays and ineffective construction are threatening progress.
“Nobody wants to go from Doral to downtown. It’s a nightmare,” said San Miguel. “We see the improvements that are being made, but that’s partially what’s causing the problem. It’s certainly very frustrating, but necessary because these aren’t six-month projects. These things are taking three, four, five years to complete.”
Added Dossa: “If there’s one thing that I think gets a little tough, it’s probably infrastructure. We have a lot of traffic and we don’t have too many road improvements that are probably pretty necessary.”
Ensuring that transportation investments keep pace with development will therefore be vital to maintaining Miami’s attractiveness and economic vitality. “We are going to be a big transportation hub and we need to make sure we invest in that,” Dossa said.
Miami’s vulnerability to climate change — particularly rising sea levels — adds urgency to these development plans, according to Rodriguez. “Miami is nestled between the Everglades and Biscayne Bay, so there isn’t a lot of room to expand, so you have to go up. And we’ve seen a lot of studies about climate change, rising sea levels, and I think that’s something that Miami’s going to have to really confront over the next decade.”
Rodriguez also highlighted that environmental resilience must be integrated into all infrastructure projects in order to achieve modernization. “We could become the epicenter for the world in terms of how to deal with climate change.”
Venture capital
While South Florida’s growth as a startup and innovation hub have contributed to the city’s piling infrastructure challenges, industries like fintech, healthcare, logistics, and biotech are also integral to Miami’s future resilience.
“There are still a lot of VC firms that moved to Florida (despite inflation and tariffs) that are investing in Florida,” said Gabriele, who highlighted the roughly $600 million in venture capital deals in 4Q24 in South Florida alone. “So even though there are these uncertainties and we’re in challenging times, there’s still movement in Florida because we have the infrastructure, the great universities, the ecosystem.”
“And there’s more VCs that are located in Florida now than ever, so even throughout this, there’s funding, there’s opportunities” he added. “Even though it’s a little bit more challenging, Florida has the system set up. And there’s a lot of activity within this market because of the talent that’s here. People see Florida as an emerging market.”
Massive VC investments and business incubators are fueling this momentum, transforming Miami into a top-tier innovation hub. Over the past five years, the city has catapulted into the Top 20 U.S. ecosystems for venture capital investment, with forecasts predicting annual funding of $25 billion by 2030, according to San Miguel.
Talent pipelines are therefore integral to this newfound vision for the city as the collaboration between universities, government, and the private sector fuels the creation of new startups and drives investment.
To that end, higher education institutions like the University of Miami and Miami Dade Community College are focused on driving continued investment through the creation of strong talent pipelines, which support corporate relocations and VC activity in Florida. UM, for instance, is fostering entrepreneurship through experiential learning programs and an on-campus Startup Lab, meant to build muscle memory. “We’re not all going to start companies in undergrad and run with them afterward, but can we at least start building that muscle memory so you actually know how to do it,” said Dossa.
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