An open-air, luxury shopping center at Brickell City Centre that developers say will transform downtown’s financial district is set to open Thursday morning — but don’t expect all, or even most, of its more than 100 shops to be ready.
Brickell City Centre is opening it’s much anticipated retail center this week, starting with a media preview Tuesday morning, leading to several events open to the public scheduled for Thursday.
These include:
- 9:45 AM: Ribbon-cutting ceremony with Miami Mayors, city officials, and execs from Swire, Whitman, Simon & Saks at 88 Southwest 7th Street.
- 10:00 AM: Retail doors open with a curated musical set by BCC Music Director Michaelangelo L’Acqua at 701 S Miami Avenue, with individual store activations and special programming throughout the day. (All west and east block entrances will be open.)
- 12:00 PM: Rotating DJ Series beginning at noon at 701 S Miami Avenue, featuring handpicked artists throughout Miami “blending a mix of latin, soul, classical and more.”
The 80 announced tenants are:
Anchors
Cinemex
Italian Food Hall
Saks Fifth Avenue
Apparel
100% Capri
120% Lino
Adolfo Dominguez
Agent Provocateur
Armani Collezioni
Baldinini
BDBA
Boglioli
Bruno Magli
Carmen Steffens
Chopard
Cole Haan
Crocus Studio
Hugo Boss
In-Sight
Intermix
Kiton
Koko & Palenki
Lafayette148
LIVE!
Lululemon
Mirto
Onda de Mar
Orlebar Brown
Pinko
REISS
Rhythm of Grace
SportsAction
Stitched
Suit Supply
Sundek
Ted Baker
Tommy Bahamas
Victoria’s Secret
Vilebrequin
Violetas/ Baccarat
Fashion and Personal Accessories
Acqua di Parma
Addict
APM Monaco
Audemars Piguet
Bally
Bath & Body Works
Capritouch
Caudalie
Coach
Designer Eyes
Diptyque
Font
Giuseppe Zanotti Design
Harmont & Blaine
Illesteva
IRO
Italia Independent
Kendra Scott
Kreations
Leetal Kalmanson
Michele Lopriore
Nars
Nest Casa
Pandora
Porsche Design
Richard Mille
Samsonite
Santa Maria Novella
Sephora
SPARIS
Stuart Weitzman
Westime
Dining
American Harvest
Big Easy Winebar & Grill
Le Roy Rene
DAVIDsTEA
Dr. Smood
Häagen-Dazs
Luke’s Lobster
Pasión del Cielo
Pubbelly Sushi
Quinto La Huella
Santa Fe Café
Sugar
Taco Chic
Arts and Services
AT&T
Bojanini Art Gallery
Brickell Nail Bar
Musart
Sean Donaldson Hair
About a dozen stores, including headliner Saks Fifth Avenue, will welcome customers for the opening. During a media preview of the 500,000-square-foot site, hard-hatted construction workers caulked store fronts and carted wheelbarrows of building supplies. Hurricane Matthew delayed progress of several tenants by a week. Other retailers, including several making their debut in the Miami market, have moved more slowly than expected.
“It’s more of an unveiling,” said Debora Overholt, vice president of retail for Hong Kong-based developer Swire Properties.
The shopping center, cooled by an innovative climate ribbon that shades shoppers from the sun and fans them with sea breezes, stretches across three city blocks linked by elevated pedestrian bridges. It offers 1,700 underground parking spaces and also connects to Miami’s Metromover. Public transit will be crucial to the project’s success as navigating the area by car can be tricky, due to Brickell congestion and several active construction sites in the area. It is located at 701 S. Miami Ave.
Developers have embarked on a massive wave of retail construction and renovation across South Florida, saying the region is under-served. But Brickell City Centre, which includes two condo towers, office space and a hotel for a total of 4.9 million square feet, is the first to open its doors south of the Miami River. Target markets include foreign tourists, Brickell condo dwellers and suburbanites from Coral Gables and Pinecrest.
“Our grand opening is a continuation all the way though the holidays,” Stephen Owens, Swire’s president, said over the din of hammers, saws and reversing trucks.
Owens expects 50 shops to open by the middle of November and more in December. The retail space is 91 percent leased. Over four years, the project employed about 16,000 people, he added.
Other tenants include Victoria’s Secret, Valentino, dine-in movie theater Cinemex and Porsche Design.
An Apple store is also set to open up, sources say, but neither Swire nor the tech giant has confirmed the deal. A black-fronted store on the second floor with no signage but plenty of busy workers seems a likely location.
BOXING IT IN WOULD HAVE BEEN A TRAGEDY.Hugh Dutton, designer
Whitman Family Development, which own Bal Harbour Shops, and global mall operator Simon are co-developers with Swire, which made a big bet on Miami by buying the land in 2008 as the local real estate market collapsed. Arquitectonica designed the shopping center.
One welcome sign: The temperature inside was noticeably cooler than on Brickell’s sun-baked streets. That’s thanks to the thousand-foot $30 million glass-and-steel climate ribbon.
“Boxing it in would have been a tragedy,” said Hugh Dutton, the Paris-based designer of the climate ribbon. “You can still see Miami’s beautiful blue sky.”
Years in the making, Brickell City Centre’s open-air retail center is launching on Thursday, bringing 500,000 square feet of new retail and restaurant offerings to Miami’s urban core.
Yet due to construction delays, only anchor tenant Saks Fifth Avenue and about a dozen of the 120 planned stores will open initially, as the rest of the shops and eateries rush to complete their space in time for the holiday season. Swire and retail co-developers Simon Property Group and Whitman Family Development have 92 percent of the retail space committed and 88 stores under construction, Swire Properties President Stephen Owens told The Real Deal.
“We’re four to six months behind schedule, which was extremely aggressive,” Owens said. Anywhere from four to 10 stores will open on a weekly basis, he said.
Brickell City Centre’s retail component, a centerpiece of the overall $1.05 billion mixed-use project, spans three levels of shops and two levels of underground parking. The first shopping level will have luxury stores like Armani Collezioni, Chopard and Kiton, with premium and contemporary retailers on the second and third floors.
Construction workers are on site 24 hours a day to build out all the stores, Debora Overholt, vice president of retail for Swire Properties told TRD. A tour of the shopping center on Tuesday revealed that those closest to opening include Pandora, Victoria’s Secret and Sephora, along with Saks. Many of the stores are marking their U.S. debut, like EPL Diamond; LK Leetal Kalmanson; and Carmen Steffens.
Other shops set to open at Brickell City Centre include Apple, Ted Baker, Intermix, Stuart Weitzman, Audemars Piguet, IRO, Bally, Giuseppe Zanoti, Hugo Boss, Illesteva and Lululemon. Apple, with locations on Lincoln Road, the Falls, Dadeland Mall and Aventura Mall, has been rumored to be opening its largest Florida store at BCC. Check out a full list of announced stores here.
“We think excellent tenants like these will make us a destination,” Overholt told TRD. The retail center hopes to draw on the 100,000 people who work in the Brickell area, as well as all the condo residents and tourists, she said.
Cinemex aims to open CMX theater in time for the holidays, Overholt said. The dine-in movie theater will be the first in the U.S. for the Mexico-based chain. Restaurants and bars, including American Harvest, Big Easy Winebar & Grill, Dr. Smood, Häagen-Dazs, Luke’s Lobster, Pasión del Cielo and Pubbelly Sushi, will be on the third floor.
Saks Fifth Avenue’s 107,550-square-foot store offers an open floor plan with a mix of top designers, contemporary fashion, a shoe salon, cosmetics area and a full floor devoted to men, which will include a New York-based John Allan’s men’s salon.
The store will also have the first Casa Tua Food Hall, which will open on the first floor, in the spring or summer, offering gourmet Italian food to eat on-site as well as a market, said Ramona Messore, vice president and store manager. On the third floor will be “a Casa Tua resto bar, offering cooking classes and wine tastings, as a spin-off of what they have in Miami [Beach],” Messore said.
Swire Properties first purchased the land for Brickell City Centre in 2008, at the height of the banking crisis and real estate downturn, Owens said.
“We as a company had the foresight, vision and commitment to go forward with the land,” he said. In 2012, Swire Properties was the fourth mixed-use project in Miami to announce its plans. Yet it was the first to begin and now, complete construction.
The project is certified LEED Gold and stars the Climate Ribbon, a $30 million, 1,000-foot long twisted strip of steel, glass and fabric. Hugh Dutton designed the ribbon, which tilts upward at the entrances to capture breezes, he told TRD. The glass protects from rain and deflects UV rays, said Anne Cotter of Arquitectonica, which designed Brickell City Centre. Rainwater collects in five cisterns and is recycled for mechanical systems and other uses.
Underground parking includes about 2,600 spaces for the entire project with entrances away from pedestrian areas, including one “as close to I-95 as possible, Cotter said. The garage is essentially a “big bathtub,” protected from flooding, heat and other damage.
Owens said Swire has about 10 years worth of work ahead for the next two phases of Brickell City Centre, which includes a 1,049-foot super-tall condo tower. The developer will work on the final design for the tower over the next two years before it moves forward. Other completed components of Brickell City Centre include condo towers Reach and Rise, two office buildings and East, Hotel, which opened in May. Swire also owns land in Fort Lauderdale, catty corner to All Aboard’s new station, but has no immediate development plans for that site.
Completing Brickell City Centre’s first phase runs almost parallel to Owens’ retirement date of January 2017. Kieran Bowers, general manager of Hong Kong’s Cityplaza, will take over as president of Swire Properties and Owens will stay on the board primarily as an adviser.
“I like to say I’m going to turn over the keys to the bus and I’m going to be sitting in the back,” Owens told TRD.