Stephen Ross Names Dolphins Heirs, Leaves Related Ross Question Open

Stephen Ross has set a family succession plan for the Miami Dolphins, naming son-in-law Daniel Sillman to run football and business operations while designating daughters Kimberly and Jennifer Ross as the team’s eventual owners, The Real Deal reported August 5. The 86-year-old billionaire’s other empire, the more than $10 billion Related Ross build-out remaking downtown West Palm Beach, has no comparable plan on record. Ross remains listed as sole CEO and Chairman of Related Ross, the firm he spun off from Related Companies in 2024 to run what is already the largest block of Class A office space in the city.

Why it matters

For anyone building, leasing or financing in West Palm Beach, Related Ross is not one competitor among many. Its roughly 6 million square feet of planned and built office space anchors the corridor that pulled Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and Point72 south from New York, per Benzinga. A single owner controlling that much supply is a known quantity today. Who controls it, and on what timeline, becomes a live question the moment Ross’s age enters the conversation, and the Dolphins filing shows the family has already started planning for that moment on the sports side. Related Ross’s leadership page shows no equivalent handoff mapped for the real estate arm.

The numbers

Related Ross is investing more than $10 billion across roughly 70 acres of downtown West Palm Beach, according to Benzinga, spanning about 6 million square feet of office space, 1.4 million square feet of condos, 700,000 square feet of retail and restaurants and 870 hotel rooms. Ross, now 86, turned down an offer of nearly $15 billion for the Dolphins, Hard Rock Stadium and the Miami Grand Prix combined, according to Yahoo Sports, choosing instead to keep the sports assets in the family through Sillman and his daughters.

What’s next

Related Ross has more office towers in its pipeline in West Palm Beach, and every lease or capital commitment against that pipeline now carries an implicit bet on continuity at the top. The Dolphins succession plan gives developers watching the Miami region’s northern edge the clearest public signal yet that Ross is actively planning his exit from his sports holdings. Whether a similar plan exists for Related Ross, the entity that actually owns the West Palm Beach dirt, has not been disclosed.