BAL HARBOUR, FLA. — Whitman Family Development has submitted updated plans for a $400 million expansion of Bal Harbour Shops, an upscale, 450,000-square-foot, open-air shopping center located in Bal Harbour Village near Miami Beach.
Expansion plans include the addition of the first Barneys New York flagship store in the Southeastern U.S., as well as significant upgrades to longtime anchor tenants Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.
The expansion will also include the addition of new luxury boutiques and restaurants, expanded vehicle entryways and exits with improved traffic signals, and wider sidewalks with increased landscaping and tree canopy around the shops on 96th Street and Collins Avenue.
The new plans are the result of a Bal Harbour Village Council meeting on April 13 during which all council members expressed support for the expansion, but deadlocked 2-2 on the sale of the current Village Hall site that was central to the proposal. The revised plan reduces the proposed footprint by approximately 19 percent, according to reports by the Miami Herald, and will be built entirely on land already owned by Whitman Family Development.
“The updated plan meets all of our goals, albeit in a different configuration,” says Matthew Whitman Lazenby, president and CEO of Whitman Family Development, which developed, owns and operates Bal Harbour Shops. “We’re optimistic that this plan will allay any concerns that certain council members had.”
— Katie Sloan