An almost magical find, the happy and vibrant city of Dania Beach in South Florida reminds one of a mermaid’s purse—much smaller than the neighboring cities of Fort Lauderdale and Miami yet filled with delightful treasures. Its charm, however, goes beyond the welcoming atmosphere and lively ambiance. Dania Beach’s business-friendly approach to civic development and service delivery creates a powerful combination that has transformed this once-sleepy seaside resort into a bustling cosmopolitan hub, proud to retain its small-town personality.
Creative to its core and enjoying an all-new economic renaissance, the 42,000-strong community of Dania Beach thrives on doing things differently. From its colorful, impeccably tended central business district that draws a large amount of retail tourism to the heartfelt dedication with which its city administration serves the public, there is nothing ordinary about this glorious little stretch of the Atlantic Coast.
Understanding only too well that the success of its local businesses decides its own, the city of Dania Beach dedicated decades to creating a place where families, local businesses, new investors, and visitors are all met with equal attention and care. “We treat people in our city like VIPs,” says City Manager Ana M. Garcia. They feel very, very special, and it’s a culture that goes beyond City Hall. This sense of care is like a blanket that’s over the entire city.”
It is not only people who benefit from this commitment to serve. Dania Beach is also fully compliant in protecting its precious sea turtle population, with custom lighting and other measures in place to ensure that these ancient species remain safe in their original habitat. To this end, the city’s leadership is clear that growth for its own sake is not its main motivation; continuously investing in improving quality of life is more important.
Passionate about service delivery, Garcia and her colleague, Deputy City Manager Candido Sosa-Cruz, have worked together for nearly one and a half decades, offering citizens a fully bilingual business experience whenever they deal with the city. Together with their team, they have pledged to go above and beyond for those they serve by paying attention to detail and striving for progress.
As a result, the city takes its relationships seriously. “We like to treat our business partners like we treat ourselves,” Sosa-Cruz says, highlighting that the business community has a willing business partner in the city. Based on its RISE motto—respect, integrity, and a standard of excellence—the approach serves as a constant reminder of what the city stands for in all its dealings while guiding and supporting investors and other stakeholders in achieving their ideals here.
The city administration also deems its various departments—community development, public services, fire, and police—to be of equal importance, as these services directly feed into community well-being. To this end, Garcia supports Sosa-Cruz’s sentiments. “Whether we’re dealing with a multi-million-dollar project or somebody’s bathroom renovation, we [consider] how we would want to be treated,” she says.
This means there is no place for needless bureaucracy; rather, clear communication and responsiveness make for an institution that protects the public interest by operating as efficiently as possible. The city helps investors, business owners, and citizens navigate the legalese by having well-equipped staff available to help simplify these processes every step of the way. The approach has proven successful with many new business owners who heard about its straightforward systems wanting to get their share of the Dania Beach action.
“We roll out the red carpet for you,” says Sosa-Cruz, highlighting that it is his team’s job to make dealing with the city a pleasure. “We will guide you each step of the way. You’re not on your own.”
Within this context, residents, business owners, and new investors alike are treated as respected customers with whom the city cares to establish and maintain longstanding relationships, and Dania Beach is now drawing new investors—all thanks to the high standard of excellence the city maintains.
“[With regard to] turnaround time in responsiveness, permitting, inspections, [a client] told us that he had never worked with a place like Dania Beach,” Garcia says. The hard work is certainly being rewarded as the same investor is currently in the process of investing in his second local project.
And, as the nature of business dictates that not every project runs equally smoothly, this team is adept at swimming upstream to help effect change in this beautiful place and its communities. The result is that in Dania Beach, there is always a solution to even the toughest challenge.
In its efforts to improve its services further, the Dania Beach marketing and communications department has also seen significant expansion. Garcia notes how “casting a very wide net” through this marketing channel has brought about the knock-on effect of spreading the news of its services.
In other successes, Dania Beach’s property values remain outstanding. At a 12-plus percent increase over last year (#1 in all of Broward County)—despite the rest of South Florida’s real estate trends—property here remains robust in comparison to surrounding cities. Dania Beach’s water management system, with its advanced metering infrastructure, has also significantly improved its water resources outlook. Thanks to new technology, the city can now monitor and notify homeowners and occupants of any unusual spikes in consumption. As that could be due to damaged infrastructure, the new monitoring system allows for speedy repairs and tremendous savings in the long run.
With its perpetual drive to modernize its zoning and building codes as a means of remaining accommodating, relevant, and in stride with the times, the city also listened to residents when they reported a need to reduce density and protect the skyline from an overpopulation of high-rise towers. The city also opened up the possibility to build tiny homes, in contrast to older codes that would not allow for the small sizes of these modern, affordable housing solutions.
One of the city’s great attractions, Dania Point, is a popular outdoor shopping center known as one of the state’s best. The city also celebrated the launch of a beautiful new affordable housing development by Landmark Development Corporation of Miami. As the county’s oldest city, it is also revamping aging infrastructure, and much of its new revenue investment has also gone into improving public safety through the appointment of a multitude of new first responder staff over the past five years.
In 2019, the city introduced a stormwater masterplan alongside a major parks masterplan—a first of its kind here. The result is a tremendous investment of $100 million to be spent over a decade on ensuring that the city’s residents and visitors have access to world-class parks and critical infrastructure. To this end, it is wrapping up a 22-million-dollar project at CW Thomas Park, which will see its ribbon cutting in January next year. Then there is the Patrick J. Meli Park, which is also being completely renovated. Such projects are underscored by transparency and clear communication.
Well-equipped with a long list of other strategic plans to further enhance the city, this team achieves its goals methodically and at a healthy pace. For this reason, leadership’s hands-on involvement also extends to its teams on the ground. From the community development team to parks and recreation, the beach rangers, police officers, building inspectors, and more, everyone in service and management positions working for the city is expected to attend public meetings where the specific communities directly affected by its projects are kept up to speed in a friendly, open environment where questions are always welcomed.
This high level of communication is further maintained through a quarterly, award-winning hardcopy newsletter, The Pioneer, which is delivered to every household in the city. Despite the cost and effort of printing a hard copy newsletter, it is worth it as its reception by the public is simply invaluable. While Dania Beach does go to great lengths to also employ social media and its website, Garcia and Sosa-Cruz report that the proven results in its marketing and communication efforts are achieved through The Pioneer.
Moreover, the culture afficionados of Dania Beach were happy to learn of the city’s recently introduced public arts masterplan, together with an arts board. There is also the new Dania Beach Arts Park that opened in 2024, and one of the city’s impressive murals even won a national award this year.
Dania Beach also looks after its industrial partners. Exceptionally well situated between Palm Beach and Miami Dade Counties, and as the corporate headquarters for Spirit Airlines, air, harbor, marine, and transportation industries flourish here. “We have some of the largest shipyards in the world here,” says Sosa-Cruz. “One shipyard in particular has one of the largest lifts to lift mega yachts over 120 feet, and they do repairs and retrofits.”
Naturally, with business being this good, the city increasingly sees families move here. With two elementary schools, Dania and Collins, alongside Olsen Middle School, parents have a high-quality school district to count on for their children’s education. There are also several options to choose from for tertiary education, with institutions like Florida Atlantic University’s Dania Beach campus right on the doorstep.
To further support local growth and evolution, the city provides grants for opportunities like after-school activities, summer camps, scholarships, and much more. “These great relationships with the schools, enhancing what we provide for families and kids… I don’t think any city does it better than us,” Garcia says.
With its strong culture of employing high-achieving team players, the city is proud of its dedicated staff. When business needs to be done, they are there to help. And, thanks to a city leadership that understands that good service means measuring itself against the private sector, it employs the best people for each role. “Our staff have a lot of autonomy; they’re able to make their own decisions. We don’t micro-manage people,” Sosa-Cruz says of the incredible group of people behind the scenes who keep Dania Beach ticking.
While the team knows that no city was ever built in a day, Dania Beach remains a precious treasure to be developed and polished to perfection for the enjoyment of all by people who genuinely care. With a thoroughly developed succession plan in place, locals, investors, and visitors can rest assured that the city’s commitment to excellence will persist. Using their passion as fuel to grow, these visionary leaders promise to continue making the waves that take Dania Beach to ever-expanding heights.
