A Beacon of Excellence

Port St. Lucie celebrates a Year of Awards, Honors, and Recognition

BY SUSAN BURGESS

With its new awards and honors, Port St. Lucie The award-winning city of Port St. Lucie continued its winning ways throughout the past year, scooping up an armload of awards and honors from a variety of sources and winning recognition as a great place to live. 

TREE CITY USA – For the 20th consecutive year the city took home this Arbor Day Foundation honor for its exemplary attention to planting and maintaining community trees. In January the Port St. Lucie Botanical Gardens planted a tree on Florida’s Arbor Day, which differs from the national Arbor Day in April. The city also had the distinction of receiving international designation as one of only 170 “Tree Cities of the World.” The city has planted more than 75,000 trees over the years and given away 14,000 more free to residents.

NATURALLY PSL – Usually it’s the city that is getting the awards, but this time, it is giving them out to residents instead. One of the reasons people move to the city is because it has so many parks and there are always more on the way. A couple of years ago residents said access to green spaces — parks and natural areas — was their top priority. The city has come up with a comprehensive program featuring different kinds of projects that can be eligible for awards. Examples are planting trees, creating Florida-friendly yards, litter cleanup, students demonstrating environmental leadership, schools with sustainability projects and government agencies or departments with innovative ideas for public projects for instance for cleaner water.

HIGH FINANCIAL RATING – Moody’s, a credit rating agency, just upgraded the city’s bond ratings from Aa3 to Aa2, citing strong revenue growth, conservative management of American Rescue Plan Act funds and manageable long-term liabilities and fixed costs as reasons for the upgrade. “Their ratings highlighted favorable economic trends in the community, which demonstrates the city council’s strategic vision and the efforts of the staff,” said Stephen Okiye, the city’s finance director and treasurer.

ALL-AMERICA CITY FINALIST – Twenty cities are finalists in the National Civic League’s All-America City competition and on June 29 we’ll know If the city of Port St. Lucie rose to the top and took the 2025 award. The city made it to the top 20 thanks to its efforts to involve its residents in decision-making for long-term projects such the water quality project at the McCarty Ranch facility and the annual Citizens Summit where people say what they most want to see in the city’s future. “Communities thrive when all residents have a voice in the policies and decisions that shape their lives.” said Doug Linkhart, president of the National Civic League.

FITCH REAFFIRMS WATER UTILITY’S BOND RATING –The city’s water utility is well-positioned to handle population growth and the demand for water it brings, says one of the world’s leading credit rating agencies, Fitch Ratings. The utility’s revenue bond ratings were upgraded by Fitch from -AA to AA in 2024 and this year in March, Fitch kept the AA rating noting “strong customer growth.”

GRANT TO TREASURE COAST HOMELESS SERVICES – The city of Port St. Lucie partnered with the Treasure Coast Homeless Services Council to administer a $400,000 grant for emergency rental assistance to people who are homeless or at imminent risk of being homeless within two weeks. This program tries to connect individuals and families experiencing homelessness with stable, permanent housing solutions. 

DISTINGUISHED BUDGET AWARD – The city of Port St. Lucie has turned its budget presentation into an art. Gone are the days when the budget was a thick, heavy book filled with grey masses of columns, charts, numbers and little else. The city’s budget is filled with illustrations that make sense of the numbers and make it easy to follow. 

36th MOST ETHNICALLY DIVERSE MIDSIZE CITY IN THE U.S. – WalletHub, a financial website, looked at over 500 midsize U.S. cities across the country and based the ranking on residents’ ethnicity and race, language and birthplace. 

$1.8 MILLION AWARDED FOR HOME REPAIRS – The State Housing Initiative Partnership [SHIP] awarded the city the funding to help qualified low-income residents pay for critical repairs. It allowed residents to apply for grants of up to $50,000.

9TH BEST FLORIDA CITY TO MOVE TO – With a low crime rate and one of the lowest poverty rates in the state, Consumer Affairs, a research and review site, ranked Port St. Lucie the 9th best Florida City to move to in 2025. For safety, it ranked fifth and for the low poverty rate, ranked 9th. The review compared 50 of the largest cities in the state using affordability, safety, economy, healthcare, education and quality of life. Miami Beach ranked at the bottom.

FOURTH BEST FOR HISPANIC ENTREPRENEURS – Of more than 180 cities surveyed by the financial site WalletHub, Port St. Lucie ranked fourth-best for Hispanic entrepreneurs. The city was named 7th in friendliness toward Hispanic-owned businesses and 9th in purchasing power. The top 9 cities in WalletHub’s survey were all in Florida, with Pembroke Pines at the top of the list. Loredo Tex. snuck in there to take 10th place, right before Tampa which made number 11.

10th BEST PLACE TO LIVE – U.S. World and News Report named Port St. Lucie 10th best out of 150 cities surveyed. It saw a nearly 4.93 percent increase in new residents between 2021 and 2022, the last time period surveyed. It was the third-fastest growing city of the 150 surveyed. The attraction was due to being one of the state’s least populated areas 

to live near a beach, the 5th-lowest crime rate and the beautiful weather. 

3RD BEST CITY FOR FIRST-TIME HOMEBUYERS – Out of 300 cities surveyed by financial website WalletHub, Port St. Lucie was the third-best city for first-time homebuyers in the nation. Besides this remarkable achievement the city took 2nd place for mid-size cities. Affordability was not its strong suit — it ranked 224th in affordability. But its first-place ranking in the real estate market for a high number of active listings and building permits made it stand out. Even more good news: it had the second lowest property crime rate, 12th lowest violent crime rate, 16th-highest home price appreciation in the country, with homes worth 96% more in 2022 than they were in 2016. The city also has the 23rd-lowest foreclosure rate among the cities, according to WalletHub. 

TOP ECONOMIC GROWTH – Among cities of under 250,000 people, Port St. Lucie was No. 3 in economic growth in the entire country according to Coworkers Café, which keeps track of economic growth in cities nationwide. Port St. Lucie is one that has emerged as a beacon of prosperity and growth, the survey said. A booming population growth together with booming development and a reputation as a good place for entrepreneurs pushed it up to the top. The city attracts new residents and tourists, which further bolsters the economy.