Tony Cho, Founder & Chairman, Metro1 / Founder & CEO, Future of Cities

Invest: spoke with Tony Cho, founder and chairman of Metro1 and founder and CEO of Future of Cities, about his evolution from an early pioneer in Miami’s urban core to the creator of a broader platform focused on regenerative placemaking. “I want to be in a place that feels alive,” Cho said, as he reflected on authentic neighborhood growth, cultural preservation, and the expansion of Future of Cities into new markets.

How do you define placemaking today, and how has your approach evolved as Miami’s urban core has matured?

I started Metro1 20 years ago, and last year we celebrated our 20th anniversary. We completed over $4 billion in non-institutional transactions. About eight years ago, I launched my family office, Cho Ventures, and the Future of Cities platform, which is a developer, a think tank, and a venture capital ecosystem.

That platform is demonstrating projects across Florida, especially the Phoenix Arts and Innovation District in Jacksonville, which is a 9-acre, 830-unit development that was approved as a public-private partnership. For me, that is a strong demonstration of what regenerative placemaking is all about. That framework is also central to my book, Generation Regeneration: Co-Designing the Future of Cities Through Regenerative Placemaking, which I have been working on for the last four years.

Metro1 has evolved into a whole series of things. I started buying real estate in Miami almost 25 years ago. I launched Metro1 in 2005 in Wynwood, on 27th Street, where the MetroRail and Tri-Rail stop is going to go. I was one of the early pioneers in that district, alongside people like the Rubells, the Margulies, and other gallerists. Shortly after, Tony Goldman and Joey Goldman came in and helped accelerate the growth of the district. I was honored to work alongside Tony Goldman, whom I considered a mentor, and I was one of the founding members of the Wynwood Business Improvement District. We held meetings at my office on 27th Street and helped define the future of Wynwood.

From there, I brought Related Group into Wynwood. We bought the first project together, Wynwood 29, which has since been completed. I feel privileged to have been a catalyst not only in Wynwood and Little Haiti, but across the urban core, including downtown, Park West, the Design District, Midtown, and Edgewater. To drive around those areas now and see how much they have changed is wild. I was there when some of those places were still rough, and now they are filled with luxury buildings and major development.

At this point, I am no longer running Metro1 directly. I have a managing director, Andres Nava, running Metro1, while I focus on Cho Ventures, Future of Cities, ChoZen in Central Florida, the Jacksonville development, and a Golden Visa fund in Portugal. It has been quite a journey from starting in Miami and seeing that work expand around the world.

What signals do you look for when identifying the next neighborhoods to invest in?

I like to get in early and identify opportunities before they happen, but it is not just about knowing an area is going to become hot. You have to help create it. You have to help bring together the creatives, the tenants, the landlords, the artists, the makers, and the bakers. That is what it takes to create the kind of neighborhood that is culturally vibrant and interesting.

What I focus on is how to preserve culture and make places accessible for artists and creatives. That is why I have always loved Little Haiti and Little River. Those neighborhoods have a rich cultural history and a lot of small businesses. I was also the founder of the Magic City Innovation District. I sold my interest four years ago, but I am proud of being able to help put that project together. It is 18 acres, entitled for 8 million square feet, and it is tied to important transit infrastructure.

We also created a Little Haiti Trust out of that, with $41 million for the Little Haiti community. There has been a lot of growth there, and I had already been active in Little Haiti for 25 years before many people really knew what it was. I am always looking for places with real identity, real culture, and room for value creation.

How do your different business lines work together today to create value beyond traditional real estate services?

Metro1 was doing more of those vertically integrated services when I was running it directly, but now my main platform is Future of Cities. Metro1 is one of my portfolio companies, but Future of Cities is where I am focused.

At Future of Cities, we are doing development and regenerative advisory services, which I see as the evolution of sustainability. Sustainability is not enough. The next step is regenerative thinking, regenerative development, and regenerative placemaking. That is about how the place, the people in that place, and the environment can coexist in balance and harmony.

That goes beyond just reducing carbon emissions or minimizing negative impact. It is about creating jobs, affordability and access, and making places feel truly alive economically, socially, and culturally. I call it the quadruple bottom line: people, planet, profit, and purpose. That is a big part of what is in my book and what drives Future of Cities.

Metro1 was focused on shaping and curating neighborhoods in the urban core of South Florida. Future of Cities is a broader platform. It is based in Miami, but it now has developments in Indian River County, Jacksonville, and Portugal, and soon Colombia. It is exciting to see how the thinking that came out of urban-core revitalization and support for small businesses has evolved into a much larger development platform.

I want to be in a place that feels alive. I like authenticity. I like places where there is still room for growth and improvement. I am always looking at how to create value, not just financially, but for the whole ecosystem. I call that reward on the community, reward on the environment, and reward on the financial side all working together.

How do you balance economic growth with maintaining the identity of the communities you work in?

I would not call it rough around the edges. I would call it authentic. To preserve that authenticity, you have to embrace the local culture, understand the history of the place, and co-design with, for, and by that community. You cannot come in from the outside thinking you already have all the answers. That is not how I approach development.

I believe in doing things from the ground up with the community. You can still be a leader and a catalyst, but you want to create opportunities for all. That is where there is a win for the community, a win for the developer, and a win for the environment. That is also how the next generation wins.

A lot of development today is optimized for short-term profit. People are thinking about quarterly profits or short fund cycles. I do not think profit should be the only metric. Profit matters, but it has to be in balance with what the community needs. Culture cannot be erased, and it cannot be prescribed. It is organic. It has to be co-created with the people who are there.

Culture is alive. It has a past, a present, and a future. It evolves, but it should evolve with the participation of the people who are part of that place. If people feel like they have a seat at the table, then there is a better chance of creating something real and lasting.

What role do you see Future of Cities playing in shaping not just Miami, but other cities facing similar challenges?

Future of Cities has a multi-pronged strategy. At a high level, it is about popularizing regenerative ideas that may sound revolutionary to some people, but to others, they are simply practical. What I like about regenerative thinking is that it is not political or religious. It just makes sense. It is about how to regenerate lives, communities, soil, the environment, and the economy.

The platform works through social media, courses, and education. We hosted a global summit in July, published the book in August, and we are building a network of people around the world who are practicing regenerative placemaking. The idea is to help prototype projects and create living laboratories or urban laboratories in different places.

There will be opportunities for Future of Cities to joint venture, partner, and provide capacity capital in other cities. We are already in Portugal, and we are expanding into Colombia. In some projects, we may not be the lead developer. We may be advising, partnering, underwriting regenerative projects, helping match them with regenerative capital, or helping define best practices and metrics that can be emulated elsewhere.

A big part of that is measuring what matters. Every community is different, so the metrics have to be locally based. Communities should determine what they want measured and what outcomes matter most to them.

Why did you choose Portugal and Colombia for expansion?

Colombia is personal for me. I was married to a Colombian for 14 years, and she passed away nine months ago from breast cancer. Through her, I built a connection to the land, and I still have family there. Medellín, where we are focused, is one of the greatest cities in the world. It is one of the greenest cities in the world and has won recognition for innovative social and environmental projects.

I also like the underdog story. I am drawn to places that have a lot of potential but do not always get the same level of attention and resources. Colombia has been through a lot, but it has incredible natural resources, cultural richness, and creative energy. That is appealing to me.

Portugal is similar in that it is a beautiful place with a strong spirit of exploration. There are a lot of innovative people from around the world who have moved there to create a new world for themselves. It is also attractive because of the Golden Visa program. We have a fund there that allows people to invest and pursue that path with their families, and we are doing projects there as well.