2 min read April 2022 — Bernard Paul-Hus, president of Hypower Inc., spoke with Invest: about the development of South Florida and the decisions that led growth to be region-focused. He discussed the result of governmental policy and how it has encouraged growth in Broward. Paul-Hus also connected the decisions that are being made today to ensure sustained economic development and more prosperity for the residents of Greater Fort Lauderdale.
How have post-COVID trends affected your operations?
It has been a year of tremendous growth. There are challenges, like the continuing increase of the cost of everything, from housing to commodity materials for our projects. Despite all of the supply chain disruptions, we’ve been able to grow the 20% that we had hoped to grow. We are very diversified, so when certain things slowed down, we shifted our resources into the other lines of work, such as solar, runway lighting systems, underground power systems and fiber optic cable systems. In terms of labor shortage, we just recruited from California and Michigan because there are people who want to relocate to South Florida. However, they’re finding housing prices to be really out of control, forcing us to respond by increasing wages across the board. We have to do what it takes to keep up with the rest of the world.
What are some of the most popular projects in Broward and what trend are they following?
There has been a tremendous amount of new investment in South Florida, primarily in the industrial warehouse space. Healthcare is booming; the universities and public schools have started building again. Hospitality is getting busy again. Hotels, resorts, cruise lines, the airport and the seaport are very busy and will continue to be busy because there’s a tremendous number of projects being engineered.
Renewable energy continues to be very busy, and also moving the overhead power line underground continues to be a priority. Industrial warehouses are being built at an unbelievable pace. There’s a tremendous amount of transportation infrastructure that’s being invested in right now. We have very robust public spending, as well. County spending, in particular, is starting to ramp back up with some substantial investments being made by the counties and cities. It’s very difficult to pick out a marketplace that seems to be stagnant.
What is behind the growth that Broward is experiencing?
Over the last 10 years, momentum has continued to build and build. These are long-term effects of really good monetary policy by the government. The decisions that are made by the government today will affect us in three to five years; they have no immediate effect. It takes a long time, from the time the government decides to spend money on infrastructure to the time it gets to a company like ours. Projects have to go through planning stages, environmental research and engineering, among other facets. There is no such a thing as new shovel-ready jobs. All the shovel-ready jobs coming from projects have been put on hold. All of these projects that went on hold because of COVID have been released all at one time. Call it pent-up demand. Last year, construction had a lot less work, around 7 or 8% less work year-over-year as a nation. However, Florida was precisely the opposite. We are fortunate to be in a region where there’s so much demand for our services that it overcame the impact of the pandemic.
Decisions that were made 15 years ago are actually saving us right now. The decisions government officials made years ago around the ports and the airports are paying benefits today. In my opinion, what you’re seeing today has nothing to do with current discussions or even what happened two or three years ago. It has to do with the decisions that were made a long time ago.
How will the decisions being made today affect people over the next decade of economic development?
All of these industrial warehouses that are being built in South Florida have become a huge hub. The ports will be receiving so much more cargo because of bigger ships and the increased capacity of the cranes. These ports with expanded capacity will draw other distribution centers. That will drive companies to build their headquarters here as well. We are already seeing some companies like Spirit Airlines significantly expand here. Amazon is continuing to build at a feverish pace, with very large distribution centers as well as all their smaller micro-distribution centers. We were asked to look at wiring a 3 million square foot Publix distribution facility, another sign of expected growth. We are also expecting a significant increase in county-funded work. Many counties are planning to invest in an electric vehicle bus system. The electrification of everything is a major trend as well. South Florida is installing thousands of car chargers every year. Entire corporate fleets are becoming electric. Electric homes, electric roads, and electrical infrastructure are going to continue to expand significantly. Additionally, more financial services companies are also continuing to move to South Florida, which means new trading floors and data centers. These new buildings require fiber optic internet and large amounts of energy.
We also need to look at mitigating the impact of future storms and sea-level rise. That is going to create billions of dollars of work for the next couple of decades throughout Florida.
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