At the site of the future City of Miami government hub, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez on Wednesday reflected on his past and the 16 years he’s spent as an elected official.
The 2025 Miami State of the City address served as a send-off to Suarez, who after two terms in office as mayor, will be termed out at the end of this year.
Local and federal dignitaries, as well as Suarez’s family, heard the mayor recount his achievements since taking office as a commissioner in 2009.
The event was held at Miami Freedom Park (formerly the Melreese golf course), where officials broke ground for the construction of a new city administration building to replace the current offices on the Miami River and City Hall in Coconut Grove.
Suarez celebrated what he considers the highlights of his tenure, namely a reduction in the city’s homicide rate and the increase in business over the past decade. The homicide rate in Miami-Dade County overall has dropped. The Miami Police Department reported a 40% reduction in murders and nonfatal shootings from 2022 to 2023.
The Miami Vice era of the 80s is long behind us,” Suarez said in his speech.
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Suarez lauded his own efforts in taking Miami out of insolvency after he first took office. The city faced a $53 million deficit in 2009. To handle the financial state of emergency, Suarez — as commissioner — pushed to slash salaries and benefits for city employees, which the commission ultimately did.
The move was met with backlash from employees and labor unions, including a lawsuit against the city that went to the Florida Supreme Court. The city settled with the labor unions in 2018 to the tune of $53.5 million. Despite the fallout, the city was able to get out of its deficit and now has more than $200 million in reserves, according to the 2024-2025 budget.

The mayor’s tenure over the past four years was largely marked by his courting of the tech industry to position Miami as a tech hub of the south. In 2020, Suarez embarked on a campaign to attract tech entrepreneurs and companies that started when he tweeted his now signature phrase: “How can I help?”
Since then, several large financial firms and technology companies have either relocated to Miami or expanded their offices here, including Citadel Securities and Spotify.
During his speech, Suarez said the city should continue these efforts to court large industries to bring in more wealth.
“We should work further to make Miami the capitol of capital, displacing New York and London as the central point for capital aggregation and deployment in the world," he said.
Suarez also flirted with the cryptocurrency scene, headlining a crypto conference in 2022 and proposing that City of Miami employees be paid in Bitcoin. This was before major crypto figures like Sam Bankman-Freid of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX was convicted of fraud and the scene somewhat cooled.
Suarez’s tenure was also characterized by an air of controversy over Miami City Hall.
While Suarez has been in office, a city commissioner received a $63 million judgement against him from a pair of local business owners, the city attorney he picked was removed from her job and another commissioner was arrested and suspended from office, though charges against him were dropped.
Suarez himself has been the subject of numerous investigations into his own conduct.
Last year, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office said it was working with the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics to investigate Suarez’s many side jobs and business arrangements. A Miami Herald investigation found that Suarez’s wealth boomed during his mayoral term and listed more than 10 jobs outside his work for the city.

Suarez was also called to testify in a Securities Exchange Commission investigation into developer Rishi Kapoor, who was charged with perpetuating a $93 million fraud scheme. Suarez worked as a consultant for Kapoor’s firm, Location Ventures, and reportedly worked with Kapoor to push certain zoning changes in the city.
Suarez rebuffed questions about the investigations, and said residents who may feel a lack of trust in city officials should look at his and the city's record to see their good works.
“I would urge our residents to listen to my speech, which talks about what we’ve done as opposed to how people try to characterize what we’ve done,” Suarez said in an interview with WLRN.
The mayor pointed to initiatives he’s pushed for the community, including a college scholarship for students studying STEM, and a Mayor’s Gala to raise money for a homelessness assistance foundation.
Suarez said that in his last 300 days in office, he hopes to leave a legacy for the future of Miami with major construction projects like Miami Freedom Park and the restoration of cultural landmarks like Miami Marine Stadium.
A video of Suarez's State of the City speech can be found here.