ServiceNow to Bring 850 Jobs, $1.8B Impact as West Palm Beach Emerges as ‘Wall Street South’ Tech Hub

Earlier this winter, ServiceNow, a Santa Clara, Calif-based AI company, said it plans to open “a regional headquarters and innovation hub” in a Class A office building in downtown West Palm Beach.

The company said in an announcement that the project will bring about 850 new jobs to West Palm Beach, with average annual wages of about $170,000.

ServiceNow received incentives to locate in the city: $2 million in city grants and $15 million from the Florida Department of Commerce, according to local news reports.

Palm Beach city officials are certain the investment will pay off handsomely. 

They point out that ServiceNow has about 27,000 employees worldwide, and reported sales of $3.215 billion in the second quarter of 2025. The company’s largest customer is the federal government, and executives say Palm Beach is poised for even more tech growth in the future.

The company’s new regional innovation hub will mean some $1.8 billion in economic impact in the local area over five years, according to a local study.

ServiceNow said it chose West Palm Beach for its “fast-growing talent pool, favorable business environment and proximity to major customers and partners in the Southeast U.S.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a statement, said ServiceNow will become one of Palm Beach County’s largest employers.

“Florida continues to lead on economic opportunity,” DeSantis said. “I was proud to announce ServiceNow’s major investment in South Florida and welcome the opportunities it will create for Floridians.”

ServiceNow will be taking some 200,000-square-feet of office space in one of developer Stephen Ross’s twin city towers in West Palm Beach.

Ross, 85, founder of Related Companies and Related Ross, is widely-known as the developer of Hudson Yards in New York City and owner of the Miami Dolphins football team.

But he has also played a key role in the development of West Palm Beach as a technology center. Ross, who started as a tax attorney in New York and established Related Companies in 1972, moved to Palm Beach during the Covid pandemic.

He is the developer of CityPlace in downtown West Palm Beach and has been a major champion of mixed use development to help boost the area.

Ross was instrumental in bringing Vanderbilt Hospital’s first-ever satellite graduate campus to West Palm Beach and also played a major role in partnering with Guident Corp. to start a pilot program called MiCa, a fully-autonomous electric shuttle.

He also brought in the Cleveland Clinic, a healthcare provider that leases a 120,000-square-foot office at CityPlace. It offers chemotherapy and infusion therapy, imaging endoscopy and outpatient surgery.

Real-estate industry experts say that Ross could wind up spending as much as $10 billion on various projects in West Palm Beach.

Lately, the usually-reserved Ross has gone on something of a media blitz, talking to national and local media.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Ross said he sees Palm Beach County as the next Silicon Valley. He said that a proposed tax on billionaires in California has caused fear and panic among investors there, and that Palm Beach County may now be a more business-friendly environment.

“The venture capitalists kind of want to get out of California because of the restrictions that are there, the taxes, the cost of doing business there – this is what really opened up opportunities for other states,” Ross told the business news service. Palm Beach County, he added, is probably “one of the best places in America, if not the best, to really do business.”

“You can just feel in the air the growth that’s occurring here as the city is really developing,” Ross said. “Florida does not want to be California or New York. It is a very conservative state. It is very business friendly.”

In California, a large labor union representing health-care workers, has put together a proposal called the “2026 Billionaire Tax Act.” The union, the Service Employees International West, is gathering signatures hoping to get it on the ballot in the November elections. If approved by voters, the act would require Californians with a net worth beyond $1.1 billion, to pay a one-time tax equal to five percent of their assets.

Some 40 years ago, the majority of Palm Beach County residents were retired senior citizens, but now the median age is 40.2 years, according to demographics.

The county even has a nickname – Wall Street South.

“We call ourselves the Sixth borough of New York City,’ said Kelly Smallridge, CEO of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County. “With all the talent, the young families and money that moved here, that has changed the dynamic of this county.”