GlobeSt.com: Your project FATcity is a progressive mixed-use environment that you envision being a technology and education hub. What key indicators drive your hypothesis that the area needs this and can support it?

Traina: Miami is now the second most entrepreneurial city in the US, with the highest startup density in the country at 247.6 startups per 100,000 people, according to recent studies. I think with the stewardship of Phillip Frost, Manny Medina with the eMERGE AMERICAS conference, and entities like The Beacon Council and the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, have created a spirit that has moved throughout South Florida. In particular, Fort Lauderdale has attracted some amazing corporations: Microsoft, Magic Leap, and Citrix to name just a few.

Diversity is our differentiator, and FATcity is a product of that diversity where we want to harness the city's energy into a unique Work, Learn, Play, Live environment. There are tremendous universities such as Nova Southeastern University, Broward College, and Florida International University, that we hope to attract into the downtown to create a mini-campus where they can work together creating incubators and accelerators to bridge the new skilled workforce with the employers and investors for their future.

The only missing link up until now is the convergence of all these elements in a self-contained urban setting. Our plans call for over 1.3 million square feet of mixed-use development within the most burgeoning area of Fort Lauderdale, flanked by the Commercial & Arts Districts and adjacent to the Brightline Station and WAVE Hub.

GlobeSt.com: Your project along with adjacent land owned by the city and connected to the Brightline and Wave is one of the proposed sites that could attract an Amazon or like-minded corporation to South Florida. However this area is still burgeoning. Is the infrastructure ready?

Traina: The Brightline is a game changer for Florida. From our project market area, you can be in Miami or Palm Beach in less than 30 minutes, and soon to Orlando in three hours. The City has done a tremendous job in preparing Fort Lauderdale's downtown for this sustained growth via completed, current, and planned infrastructure projects.

The platform that the city and county have created to spur economic development has clearly worked. All you need to do is look at the great companies that are already investing in Fort Lauderdale to make it the “City of the Future,” including Related, Stiles, Rockefeller, Lennar, PMG, Morgan, and many other great development firms. This vital infrastructure will help the existing, relocating, and future employers within Fort Lauderdale to retain and attract the talented workforce of the future as well as create efficiencies that other cities cannot.

GlobeSt.com: Regardless of a corporation like Amazon coming, you're proceeding with a very ambitious project but one you think makes total sense. Explain the new urbanization topography.

Traina: For a couple of decades, sprawling development in suburban areas has been on the rise with masterplan communities, service and power retail centers, and service-oriented office aimed at the growing populous of cities; the majority being workforce. Development within the Central Business District (CBD)'s has been office and expensive high-rise condos. Today, experience, quality of life, and culture are fueling drastic change. The demand today is to reside and work where “life is happening.”

MIAMI—A transit-oriented development is set to rise on South Florida. This one is called FATcity, which stands for Florida Arts and Technology.

FATcity fronts an entire city block along the east side of Andrews Avenue between Northeast 3rd and 4th Streets. The lot is assemblage of five contiguous parcels of land totaling 2.69-acres in Flagler Village.

Ultimately, FATcity will be comprised of two, 30-story towers featuring 270,000 square feet of office, retail and a potential for hospitality; 612 residential units; and 1,327 covered parking spaces. A true Transit Oriented Development (TOD) mixed-use project, FATcity is in City Center (RAC-CC) Special Zoning District and connects the Central Business and Arts Districts through pedestrian-oriented walkable streets, access to Brightline's High-Speed Rail station within two blocks of the property, and a Wave Streetcar stop on-site.

GlobeSt.com caught up with Joseph Traina, Jr. to get his insights in this exclusive interview.

GlobeSt.com: Your project FATcity is a progressive mixed-use environment that you envision being a technology and education hub. What key indicators drive your hypothesis that the area needs this and can support it?

Traina: Miami is now the second most entrepreneurial city in the US, with the highest startup density in the country at 247.6 startups per 100,000 people, according to recent studies. I think with the stewardship of Phillip Frost, Manny Medina with the eMERGE AMERICAS conference, and entities like The Beacon Council and the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, have created a spirit that has moved throughout South Florida. In particular, Fort Lauderdale has attracted some amazing corporations: Microsoft, Magic Leap, and Citrix to name just a few.

Diversity is our differentiator, and FATcity is a product of that diversity where we want to harness the city's energy into a unique Work, Learn, Play, Live environment. There are tremendous universities such as Nova Southeastern University, Broward College, and Florida International University, that we hope to attract into the downtown to create a mini-campus where they can work together creating incubators and accelerators to bridge the new skilled workforce with the employers and investors for their future.

The only missing link up until now is the convergence of all these elements in a self-contained urban setting. Our plans call for over 1.3 million square feet of mixed-use development within the most burgeoning area of Fort Lauderdale, flanked by the Commercial & Arts Districts and adjacent to the Brightline Station and WAVE Hub.

GlobeSt.com: Your project along with adjacent land owned by the city and connected to the Brightline and Wave is one of the proposed sites that could attract an Amazon or like-minded corporation to South Florida. However this area is still burgeoning. Is the infrastructure ready?

Traina: The Brightline is a game changer for Florida. From our project market area, you can be in Miami or Palm Beach in less than 30 minutes, and soon to Orlando in three hours. The City has done a tremendous job in preparing Fort Lauderdale's downtown for this sustained growth via completed, current, and planned infrastructure projects.

The platform that the city and county have created to spur economic development has clearly worked. All you need to do is look at the great companies that are already investing in Fort Lauderdale to make it the “City of the Future,” including Related, Stiles, Rockefeller, Lennar, PMG, Morgan, and many other great development firms. This vital infrastructure will help the existing, relocating, and future employers within Fort Lauderdale to retain and attract the talented workforce of the future as well as create efficiencies that other cities cannot.

GlobeSt.com: Regardless of a corporation like Amazon coming, you're proceeding with a very ambitious project but one you think makes total sense. Explain the new urbanization topography.

Traina: For a couple of decades, sprawling development in suburban areas has been on the rise with masterplan communities, service and power retail centers, and service-oriented office aimed at the growing populous of cities; the majority being workforce. Development within the Central Business District (CBD)'s has been office and expensive high-rise condos. Today, experience, quality of life, and culture are fueling drastic change. The demand today is to reside and work where “life is happening.”