INNOVATION
In April, fast-growing Fort Lauderdale-based ABA Centers of Florida sponsored Autism Awareness Night at the Miami Marlins’ loanDepot park. ABA Centers brought mobile play areas akin to what it has at its autism care clinics around the country. ABA Centers is the name sponsor of the ballpark’s sensory room where guests can recenter themselves amid the hubbub during games and other events. ABA Centers is also the team’s “Autism Education Partner.” ABA Centers supplies “soothe-on-the-go” packs to alleviate overstimulation.
ABA — applied behavior analysis — Centers of Florida provides play-based therapy to children on the autism spectrum. The company placed first on Inc.’s 2024 list of fast-growing companies in the Southeastern U.S. with 6,625% two-year revenue growth. The company went from four employees at its founding in 2020 to 1,400 at year-end 2023. It usually enters markets — “service areas” — first with in-home or in-school services before opening a care center. It has centers in 11 of its 28 service areas in nine states and plans for 30 this year. Florida care centers are in Boca Raton and Port St. Lucie, and ABA Centers plans to open others in the Orlando and Tampa and Celebration areas this year with perhaps two more in Southeast Florida by early 2025.
Founder Christopher Barnett built his first business in his teens with a GED — he since earned bachelor’s and law degrees — but says ABA Centers is his “true passion project.” “After personally experiencing the inadequacies of the autism care industry through my lens as a parent of an autistic child, I created ABA Centers of Florida to demolish traditional multiyear wait times experienced by those in search of an autism diagnosis or treatment while providing the highest level of clinical excellence in a model built to make my ASD (autism spectrum disorder) daughter proud,” Barnett says.
LAYOFFS
- ADT shut down its ADT solar installation unit and closed its Fort Lauderdale facility, laying off 45.
TRANSPORTATION
- JetBlue Airways and Fort Lauderdale-based Spirit Airlines called off their $3.8-billion merger after the Biden administration convinced a federal court it would harm competition. Money-losing JetBlue subsequently cut back on routes it said were unprofitable, including some serving Fort Lauderdale and other Florida cities.
- JetFly Aviation took over as the fixed-base operator at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport and renovated the facilities there.
HEALTH CARE
- Providence One Partners finished Providence Living at Pembroke Pines, a 121-unit, 130-bed assisted-living and memory-care facility. ANF was the general contractor. Providence Senior Living will manage the community.
ENERGY
- Miami-based Nopetro Renewables broke ground in Indian River County on a facility that captures landfill gas and purifies it into a biogas. Florida City Gas uses it as a natural gas for its customers. The company says the facility will produce 3 million gallons of renewable gas a year, which equates to 30,000 metric tons of displaced carbon dioxide.
REAL ESTATE
- Donald Trump proposes building a 45,000-sq.-ft., low-rise office building at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter to house his Florida club operations. Along with Trump National, the former president has Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach and Mar-a-Lago on Palm Beach and Trump National Doral in Miami-Dade. His sons Eric and Donald Jr. live in Jupiter at Trump National and Admirals Cove, respectively.
- Blue Sky Communities opened Blue Sky Landing, a $47 million, 164-unit affordable housing development in Fort Pierce for families earning 33% to 60% of area median income.
- BTI Partners topped off its Hollywood Bread Building, a 362-unit, 25-story luxury apartment tower in downtown Hollywood. Nearby, BTI plans two additional towers, B57 North and South, that will have a mix of residences, retail, dining and offices for a total of more than 1,000 residential units and nearly 200,000 square feet of commercial space downtown.
- Developer PMG is building a luxury condo project in Fort Lauderdale — Sage Intracoastal Residences, a 44-unit, 18-story building on the Intracoastal. Units start at $3 million. PMG is the developer of the Society Las Olas multifamily project in Fort Lauderdale. In Miami, it’s the developer of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residences and Elser Hotel & Residences. On the Gulf Coast, it has the Sage Longboat Key Residences and One Park Sarasota.
LOGISTICS
- Freight company Florida East Coast Railway began design work on a $218-million railroad bridge over the St. Lucie River at Stuart. It will replace the current bridge, which is a bottleneck because it’s the only single-track portion of the railway between South Florida and Cocoa. The passenger rail service Brightline uses the railway.