We’re a Kendall practice, so we pay attention to Kendall. Here’s a short history of the area we serve, why it keeps growing, and what that growth means for the businesses and families who live here.
Kendall takes its name from Henry John Boughton Kendall, a director of the Florida Land and Mortgage Company, the British firm that bought up enormous tracts of South Florida land in the 1880s. For decades the area was farmland — pineapples first, then citrus, tomatoes, and dairy — strung along the Florida East Coast Railway after Henry Flagler extended the line south toward Homestead in the early 1900s. “Kendall” was a stop on that line long before it was a place people lived.
Kendall’s transformation began after World War II, when Miami’s growth spilled south and west of Coral Gables and South Miami. Baptist Hospital opened on Kendall Drive in 1960, Dadeland Mall followed in 1962, and Miami Dade College’s Kendall Campus opened in 1967. Within a generation, Kendall Drive (SW 88th Street) became the commercial spine of South Dade, and the neighborhoods north and south of it filled with single-family homes.
The arrival of Metrorail’s Dadeland stations in 1984 and the extension of Florida’s Turnpike and the Don Shula Expressway (SR 874) connected Kendall to downtown Miami and the airport, which is when the area west of the Turnpike — what everyone now calls West Kendall — took off. Kendale Lakes, The Hammocks, Country Walk, Three Lakes, and The Crossings were largely built between the late 1970s and the 1990s on what had been tomato fields and nurseries.
On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew crossed South Dade directly over the Kendall area. Country Walk and much of south and west Kendall were devastated. The rebuilding that followed reshaped the community: stricter building codes, newer housing stock, and a wave of businesses — contractors, roofers, insurance adjusters, remodelers — that are still part of the local economy today. Many Kendall business owners we work with trace their company’s founding to those rebuild years.
Kendall is unincorporated — governed by Miami-Dade County rather than a city hall — which is part of why it has grown so steadily and so wide. Taken together, the Kendall-area communities (Kendall, Kendall West, Kendale Lakes, The Hammocks, The Crossings, Country Walk, Three Lakes, and Richmond West) are home to roughly 300,000 people, which would make the area one of the largest cities in Florida if it were incorporated.
Growth today is less about new subdivisions and more about density and business formation. The Dadeland and Town & Country corridors keep adding office and medical space, Baptist Health and Kendall Regional anchor a large healthcare workforce, Miami Executive Airport (the former Tamiami Airport) supports aviation and logistics businesses, and the SW 137th Avenue and SW 152nd Street corridors are filling in with retail, restaurants, and services. The Kendall area consistently ranks among the most active parts of Miami-Dade for new business registrations, and the majority of those registrations are small, owner-operated companies run by people who live within a few miles of where they work.
Because Kendall is unincorporated, the compliance picture for a Kendall business is: federal income tax (and payroll taxes) with the IRS, Florida sales and use tax (the DR-15) and reemployment tax with the Florida Department of Revenue, the Miami-Dade County local business tax receipt, and — if you own equipment, furniture, or fixtures — a tangible personal property return with the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser each spring. Florida has no personal income tax, and the state corporate income tax applies mainly to C corporations, which is why entity choice matters so much here.
For families, the big Kendall themes are homestead exemptions and portability, rental and short-term-rental income, self-employment and 1099 income, and — for the many Kendall households with ties abroad — foreign accounts and foreign income reporting.
No. Kendall is an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County made up of several census-designated places (Kendall, Kendall West, Kendale Lakes, The Hammocks, The Crossings, Country Walk, Three Lakes, and Richmond West). Businesses in Kendall are licensed and regulated by Miami-Dade County, not a city government.
West Kendall generally refers to the neighborhoods west of Florida’s Turnpike — Kendale Lakes, The Hammocks, Kendall West, Country Walk, Three Lakes — that were built mostly from the late 1970s onward. “Kendall” on its own usually means the older area east of the Turnpike around Kendall Drive, Dadeland, and Baptist Hospital. Our office at SW 117th Avenue sits right at the seam between the two.
At minimum: register the entity with the Florida Division of Corporations (Sunbiz), get an EIN from the IRS, register with the Florida Department of Revenue for sales tax and/or reemployment tax if applicable, and obtain a Miami-Dade County local business tax receipt plus a certificate of use for your location. Some trades also need state licensing (contractors, cosmetology, healthcare) and county permits. We walk Kendall business owners through all of it as part of our formation service.
No. Florida has no personal income tax, and neither Miami-Dade County nor the Kendall area imposes one. Kendall businesses pay federal income and payroll taxes, Florida sales tax where applicable, Florida reemployment tax on wages, the county business tax receipt, and tangible personal property tax on business equipment.
We’re off the Turnpike at SW 117th Avenue — close enough to drop off a shoebox of receipts.