Palm Beach County’s business recruiters are using a cheeky Times Square message to compete for New York companies. The campaign reflects a larger battle over taxes, jobs and whether fast-growing Florida can absorb more newcomers without worsening housing pressures.
Florida named New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani Economic Developer of the Year in a Times Square campaign that courted New York City businesses to move to Florida. The push, tied to Palm Beach County and its Business Development Board, uses Mamdani’s mayoral victory as a provocative selling point for a state pitching lower taxes and business certainty.
The label is less a conventional economic-development honor than a political message. The available reporting directly documents the Times Square advertisements and the Palm Beach County recruitment effort; it does not lay out a formal award process, judging criteria or an official statewide Florida designation for Mamdani.
A Times Square breakup note
The billboards take the form of a tongue-in-cheek farewell to New York: “Dear NYC, It’s Not You. It’s Me. Love, The Palm Beaches.” They also carry the tagline “Wall Street South.”
Kelly Smallridge, who leads the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, told WPTV that the ads were meant to be satirical. But the target is serious: businesses and families in New York who may be reconsidering where they want to operate, invest or raise children.
That makes Times Square an unusually direct setting for the pitch. Palm Beach County is not merely advertising to tourists; it is placing a competing economic vision in one of the country’s most visible commercial districts.
Mamdani becomes the campaign hook
Smallridge said the recent New York City mayoral race helped spur attention. After Mamdani’s victory, she said, inquiries increased sharply, with phones “on fire” as potential movers asked about Florida.
The campaign does not establish that Mamdani’s election alone is causing companies to relocate. It instead treats the result as a moment of heightened interest—a reason to put Palm Beach County’s existing message about taxes, predictability and quality of life in front of New Yorkers.
That distinction matters. Political transitions can prompt business leaders to explore options, but an inquiry is not a relocation, and a billboard is not evidence that a company has decided to move.
Still, branding Mamdani as an “Economic Developer of the Year” turns a local political development in New York into a Florida recruitment tool. It is designed to suggest that anxiety about policy in one city can become an opportunity in another state.
Why Palm Beach County wants firms
Palm Beach County has been cultivating the “Wall Street South” identity for years. The effort gained momentum as companies and wealthy residents from the Northeast moved to Florida during the pandemic era.
Brian Seymour, an attorney at Gunster who works with businesses and developers, told WPTV that the so-called “Mamdani effect” may or may not be real, but that it is on people’s minds. He described the broader Wall Street South trend as real and continuing.
For the Business Development Board, the goal is not simply to attract high-profile executives. Smallridge said the focus is on creating jobs locally. That is the standard economic-development argument: recruited employers can bring payrolls, suppliers, commercial activity and opportunities for residents.
Florida’s appeal in this contest is familiar. The campaign emphasizes lower taxes and greater certainty for businesses, while Palm Beach County offers proximity to finance, a growing corporate presence and access to South Florida’s broader economy.
Growth has a local price
Recruiting businesses is popular when it produces jobs, but rapid migration can create pressure that is felt first by existing residents. Housing is the clearest concern.
Sasha Kraver, a Douglas Elliman agent, told WPTV that more people are being pushed out of the area, even as Palm Beach County can still look comparatively affordable to someone coming from Manhattan. That contrast captures the tension behind the campaign: affordable relative to New York does not necessarily mean affordable for longtime Floridians.
Kraver said the market is not expected to repeat the sudden pandemic-era price jump, when prices rose 30% in one year. Even without a comparable spike, additional demand for homes, offices, schools and infrastructure can reshape a region over time.
Supporters of the recruitment push can reasonably argue that a growing tax base and more jobs benefit the county. Critics can reasonably ask whether the jobs, wages and housing supply will keep pace with the newcomers being invited in.
The message is bigger than one mayor
The Mamdani-focused campaign is best understood as a competitive ad, not a neutral assessment of New York City or a verified scorecard of Florida’s economic performance. Its core purpose is to make Palm Beach County memorable to decision-makers who may already be weighing a move.
What remains unclear is how many of the reported inquiries will become actual relocations, which industries are most interested, and whether the campaign will produce measurable job growth. The public reporting also does not specify an award sponsor or formal criteria behind the “Economic Developer of the Year” framing.
But the billboards reveal a clear strategy. Palm Beach County sees the political and economic debate in New York City as an opening to sell Florida’s business climate—and it is willing to make that case in New York’s most famous advertising corridor.
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