Bal Harbour Shops Opens 200,000-Square-Foot West Wing

Bal Harbour Shops has completed a 200,000-square-foot, two-level expansion backed by a $740 million loan, growing the Miami center to 600,000 square feet and adding roughly 30 luxury shops and restaurants on a rolling schedule that began this month and runs through next year. The project, decades in the making and stalled by community opposition, entitlement fights, construction complexity and the pandemic, is the largest in the property's 60-plus-year history.

Khaite, Boucheron, Tom Ford, Louis Vuitton, Celine, Eden Gallery, Moorer, Elie Saab, Messika, Paul & Shark and Gabriela Hearst will open in the new wing, called the West Shops. The buildout also let nearly two dozen existing tenants enlarge or relocate, among them Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Zegna, Graff, Loro Piana, Golden Goose, Zimmermann and David Yurman. Toteme and Peserico have just opened in the older East Shops. Lululemon and Simkhai expect to open in 2027, with other brands following in 2028.

"This is a big deal. We're growing from an existing position of strength while protecting the qualities that made Bal Harbour Shops distinctive for more than 60 years," said Matthew Whitman Lazenby, president and CEO of Whitman Family Development, the third-generation family owner. "Our customer wants more than product. They want discovery, service and hospitality."

What did the entitlement battle cost?

The hurdles were procedural more than financial. "Ours has always been getting the entitlements," Lazenby said. "The Village of Bal Harbour is a small, mature community. There's not much brownfield or greenfield development happening. In communities like this, there's often a fear of change, a not-in-my-backyard, NIMBY-ist attitude."

The center also had to relocate an Episcopal church on the property — a negotiation Lazenby called a 40-year effort across multiple generations, ending in a deal that rebuilt the congregation a new church in Bay Harbor Islands. A new parking garage now stands where the church was. The West Shops carry two retail levels with parking above, and the city has approved converting one parking level to retail later.

How strong are the numbers?

Annual sales at the center run $900 million to $1 billion, or $2,000 to $3,000 a square foot, and sit 35 percent above pre-pandemic levels. The average transaction is approximately $1,600. Customers visit 19 times a year on average and stay about two hours — a rate Lazenby called the highest among the competitive set. Sales through August are up 4 percent, a figure he described as "a win" in this market, held back by an 8 percent decline in jewelry attributed almost entirely to one massive Graff sale last year that was not duplicated.

At least half of visitors are international tourists or holders of second homes in the Miami area. Lazenby declined traffic specifics, citing his grandfather's line to tenants: "If you want to see people, go to China."

What is happening with the anchors?

Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue in the center are down 12 percent year-to-date. Litigation with Saks over uncollected rent since the pandemic continues. Both anchors still operate at Bal Harbour, at least for now, even as Saks has closed in St. Louis, Las Vegas and Chicago while Neiman's stayed open in those markets.

Restaurants form a growing share of the mix. Lazenby said the center is essentially doubling its restaurant count to at least eight, possibly 12, as dining drives meaningful traffic amid shifting department store habits.

What comes next?

Future plans call for approximately 500 residential units at market and more affordable rates, a hotel and another tower, partly informed by Florida's Live Local Act, which seeks to house workers closer to their jobs.

Lazenby credited the late Stanley Whitman, who opened the center in 1965 on a former World War II barracks site and designed its buildings for three levels from the start. The expansion, he said, "is the most significant expansion that we've ever made," completing a vision his grandfather sketched six decades ago.