New Stella McCartney boutique ( here under construction )

There has been quite a lot happening these last few months at the Bal Harbour Shops. The premier luxury destination of South Florida has seen some of its oldest tenants leave, giving their retail space to new fashion or jewelry designers. It all started last spring, when famous leather accessory designer Louis Vuitton closed its large store, soon followed by the Christian Dior boutique. Both companies belong to the Louis Vuitton- Moet Hennessy luxury group ( LVMH ) and  probably did not come to an agreement with the owners of the Bal Harbour Shops before having the option of ending or renewing their lease. Louis Vuitton moved to the Aventura Mall and both tenants opened a shop at Saks Fifth Avenue, located at the Bal Harbour Shops. Since then, Cartier has closed its flagship store and Hermes will leave after the end of its lease, in December 2012. Believe it or not, all these major luxury players will be moving to the Design District. Craig Robins, the developer who owns most of the Design District, is trying to turn the area into one of South Florida’s major luxury destinations. These new boutiques are planned to open between 2013 and 2014 and would join names already established in the area such as Italian fashion designer Marni and French shoe designer Christian Louboutin. These moves will inevitably change the shopping habits of our high-end local and international clientele.

La Perla new store

However, although some major names of the luxury industry are leaving the Bal Harbour Shops, the famous South Florida mall, who is famous for achieving the highest sale dollar amount per square foot for decades, does not seem ready to lose its leadership. New tenants from the PPR group, one of LVMH‘ s largest competitors, have already opened a new boutique at the Bal Harbour Shops and others will be joining the club soon. Balenciaga opened last Fall,  British designers are increasing their presence, such as Stella McCartney who opens on the first floor  this week-end and Alexander McQueen who should follow in the near future. Other luxury players such as Italian fine lingerie designer La Perla has also opened a new store and current tenants are relocating in order to get a larger retail space ( Jimmy Choo, Graf Jewelry from London, Yves Saint Laurent, Opera Gallery ).

These changes are taking place at a strategic time  for the Bal Harbour area : the  five-star St-Regis Bal Harbour hotel, located across the street  from the shopping center, is finally opening its doors on the third week of January. Jean-Georges, one of the world’s most famous chefs, will be opening Jean-Georges’ Grill, which promises to be one of the hottest dining spots in town.

South Florida’s high season is back, bringing its hundreds of snowbirds and younger birds visiting  from all over the world to enjoy our sun, beaches, restaurants, cultural scene and gorgeous water view properties.

Photo from www.luxurytraveladvisor.com

This exciting time of the year in South Florida is back again. From November 29th to December 4th, 2011, South Florida is celebrating the 10th anniversary of  Art Basel Miami Beach ( the Art Basel Miami Beach fair actually takes place between December 1st and December 4th with Vernissage on November 30th ). The contemporary art fair is coming back with its week of traffic jams and hunting for places to park, its thousands of art dealers and visitors flying in South Florida from around the world, the Art Basel Miami Beach fair taking place at the rejuvenated Miami Beach Convention Center, its dozen satellite fairs,  gallery, private collection and museum exhibitions, local artist studio tours,  public art projects and its must-be-seen-at private parties. This is the time when we may get nervous about the heavy traffic in Miami Beach, in the Miami Design District, Midtown and Wynwood areas but this week also crystallizes our pride to be in Miami, witnessing how its art scene has reached an international recognition.

Photo of the Wynwood Walls from Shinsekai blog

Once again the art fair, which is considered the most prestigious art show in the Americas, will be presenting more than 260 leading galleries from North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa and showcasing works by more than 2,000 artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Since Miami Beach hosted its first Art Basel Miami Beach fair, the sister fair to the highly respected Art Basel contemporary art fair taking place every year in June in Basel, Switzerland, ten years ago, Miami’s cultural community has highly expanded. From the explosion of South Florida artists being recognized on the national and international levels, the growing number of art galleries located in Wynwood, the development of street art ( including the Wynwood Walls, offering 50 or more wall paintings in Wynwood ), the new facility of the New World Center designed by Franck Ghery, the new Arsht Performing Art Center near Downtown Miami, the new Aventura Arts and Cultural Center, the new South Dade Cultural Center, the current construction of the new Miami Art Museum designed by Swiss architects Herzog and De Meuron… art is everywhere now and everybody wants to be a part of it.

For its 10th year celebration, Art Basel Miami Beach is launching two new partnerships : the first  is organized with the Miami Beach-based Bass Museum of Art. Public art,  installations and performances will take place on Collins Park, next to the museum. Art Public Opening Night on Wednesday November 30th will feature special performances by Theaster Gates and the Black Monks of Mississippi, Sanford Biggers and Moon Medicine and the Alalaô collective presenting Ronald Duarte. The second partnerhip is coordinated with the New World Center, as videos will be projected on the sf 7,000 projection wall of the Soundscape wall and park. Art Video will feature film and video works by today’s most exciting international artists, presented by the galleries of Art Basel Miami Beach and organized in association with London’s Artprojx.

It will surely be a challenge to be able to see it all, as usual, since the Art Basel Miami Beach fair is just one of the highlights of this first week of December. Most exhibits and events take place in South Beach and in the Design District/Midtown/Wynwood areas, except for the Nada art fair, showcased at the Deauville Beach Resort on Collins Avenue and 64th street. South Beach gathers Art Basel Miami Beach at the Miami Beach Convention Center, Design Miami and a few fairs including the second edition of Arts For A Better World which moved from Wynwood to the Surfcomber Hotel.  The Design District/Midtown/Wynwood areas host a few fairs including  Art Miami and Scope, Miami collectors exhibition spaces, the Wynwood art galleries and the Wynwood Walls. Further South, heading towards Downtown, another fair and additional cultural hot spots are the Cifo exhibition space, Pulse art fair and the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

Also, as a yearly ritual, every South Florida museum and cultural institution organizes public and/or private events during this socially and culturally invigorating first week of December, such as the  famous elite event MAM “Crash the ball” event gathering leading art patrons and organized at the Fountainebleau hotel on Saturday December 3rd, 2011.

St-Regis hotel lobby

I mentioned in a previous post  ( which I wrote last year ) that the luxurious St Regis Hotel and Residences , located just across the street from the Bal Harbour Shops, were probably going to open around March 2012. The opening of the long-awaited for five-star resort was obviously much delayed due to the real estate market downturn, however, it will definitely open earlier than March 2012.

The St-Regis residences, which are the condominium units, are opening this week, with ten closings in the pipeline in a week, according to its sales team and the hotel will open on January 20th, 2012. The St Regis residences, located in the North and South towers, are 76% sold out, including 30% of sales taking place this year. Sophisticated and well-traveled clients have obviously been protected from the financial crisis and do want to enjoy an ultimate lifestyle, no matter what. Condos range from 2 and 3 bedrooms, priced between $1.5 millions for a 2 bedroom and sf 1,177  unit to $6.5 millions for a large flow through 3 bedroom and sf 3,884 unit. I did a walk through of a few units  and some of the future common areas of the hotel a few days ago and I must confess that the 3 bedroom units are gorgeous. I saw a few units, including unit 603, which is a 3 bedroom , sf 3,424 without balcony and sf 4,204 with balcony. It is a flow-through unit offering gorgeous pool and ocean views on one side, view on the bay and the Bal Harbour Shops on the other side and a very large balcony. The kitchen sits in a whole separate room and features beautiful Italian wood cabinetry as well as a wine cellar and the best kitchen appliances.

Ocean view from a 3 bedroom unit

Each unit has a private elevator entrance. Unit owners can benefit from the luxurious services offered by the St-Regis residences and hotel : a personalized butler service, four pools, a state-of-the-art spa and fitness center and a future signature restaurant by famous New York chef Jean-Georges. Interior design of the resort and residences is created by Yabu Pushelberg, specialized in designing five-star facilities in the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries. 

It is surely time to buy now as condominium asking prices will go up once the residences open to the public later this week.

Going through a foreclosure process, thousands of owners have been pushed out of their home since 2007 and when looking for a new place to live, these individuals become renters. As a result, a high increase in demand for rentals is pushing rents to increase. 

Downtown Miami and the Brickell area are a very good example of this trend as the area has seen its average yearly rents go up by 15 to 20% as a result of high level of purchase by local and foreign investors. Attractively priced units have drawn thousands of new faces in the area, mainly young professionals who are revamping the whole neighborhood. Condominiums such as Marina Blue, The Plaza, One Miami, Epic or Icon Brickell have seen their average monthly rent go from $1,500 to $1,650 for a one bedroom apartment and from $2,000 to $2,200.

Multi-family units ( duplex, triplex and fourplex buildings ) also offer great investment opportunities as current rents can easily be increased.

It is incredible to believe but it takes an average of 749 days for a foreclosure process to take place in Florida. This means more than two years…Considering there are almost 200,000 South Florida properties that will be arriving on the market, it will surely take a few years for this upcoming inventory to get sold. Some of them are located in the Hillsboro Boulevard area, East of 95, where Broward County almost ends and Palm Beach County line starts, the Keystone Point- Biscayne Bay area in North Miami and Kendall where foreclosed homes are on average priced at -45% vs. non-distressed homes. Other areas such as neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale located East of 95 but West of US 1, Sunny Isles and North Miami Beach ( in the North Alton Road area ), foreclosed are on average priced a little bit higher but they still low prices which are in between -30 to -45%  vs. non-distressed homes.

Unfortunately, these low-priced properties drag non-distressed property selling prices down, which often forces sellers to reduce the price of their property more than they wish in order to get it sold. However, foreclosed properties can bring great opportunities for buyers willing to make a great deal, close fast, willing to pay cash and who do not mind finding potential liens and mold issues related to the properties.

Resorts World Miami-Photo courtesy of The Genting Group

A lot has been written since the Genting Group, the third casino operator in Malaysia, unveiled the architectural design of Resorts World Miami a few days ago. Resorts World Miami is the name of the massive entertainment resort and mixed-use development which plans to be built in Downtown Miami. This announcement has surely raised various reactions from Miami residents, lobbyists and local government representatives.  Some individuals, including city representatives, wish this project would focus on creating a waterfront park in Downtown Miami instead of developing casinos and restaurants. Others try to explain how high-end casinos would create an opportunity for a luxurious entertainment destination for sophisticated travelers, while several local politicians  just approve the project.

Moving backwards, The Genting Group bought a 13.9 acre waterfront property where the offices of The Miami Herald are located for $236 millions in May 2011. A few days ago, the casino operator bought the mortgage note of the foreclosed Omni site for $161 millions. Both properties are combined to create a 30 acre property. The architectural design of Resorts World Miami, signed by miami-based firm Arquitectonica is quite innovative and futuristic .

The magnitude of the $3 billion project involves a casino- if Florida lawmakers pass legislation to allow resort casinos -, 2 condominium towers, 4 hotels, 50 restaurants, 12 swimming pools, retail spaces and an outdoor lagoon.  The Malaysian company said this development would create thousands of temporary and permanent jobs.

I find the project quite interesting, at least for raising questions and debates about the various visions we have for Downtown Miami. On one hand, I do hope that this ambitious development will not transform Miami into a Las Vegas by the beach, attracting thousands of cheap-looking tourists looking for mass-market entertainment. On the other hand, we definitely need to create many more jobs in South Florida and the local Downtown Miami real estate market would gain in value. Moreover, if the facilities end-up being well designed and the restaurants offer high-quality food and service, this project could boost Miami as an entertainment destination for well-traveled visitors from the North-East of the U.S., Latin America and Europe.

FNO top-Photo from www.shoppingblog.com

Fashion’s Night Out is celebrating its third anniversary on Thursday September 8th, 2011, from 6pm to 10 pm, and is meant to be the international and yearly celebration of shopping, fashion and designers. The worldwide  shopping  extravaganza event is organized in partnership with Vogue magazine and its international editions : Vogue US is the United States, Vogue France in France, Vogue Brasil in Brazil, and so on… The seventeen participating countries feature cities ranging from Sydney to Paris, Chicago to Milan, Seoul to Miami. In the United States, celebrations are taking place nationwide, from New York City to San Francisco, Los Angeles to Las Vegas…

You got it: you’d better be out there on September 8th, sipping a martini with friends, listening to live music and discovering the latest women and men’s fashion trends and shopping.

A range of FNO designed items celebrating the event such as the FNO tee-shirts, totes and Cole Haan flats are currently for sale on the Fashion’s Night Out official website ( see Url below ) and in various spots. In Miami, the event is taking over most shopping areas, especially major local shopping destinations such as Aventura Mall, Bal Harbour Shops and The Village of Merrick Park. Aventura Mall will feature in-store events and a main party location in the Center Court, near Macy’s, showcasing live music and a fashion exhibit. Bal Harbour Shops will present many events throughout the shopping mall.

Plum Miami magazine will offer a fashion show at Neiman Marcus. Shoe designer  Edmundo Castillo, who used to be the Creative Director for Sergio Rossi, will be at Saks Fifth Avenue to present his new shoe collection. Chanel will feature its newest Chanel nail color collection, De Beers will be presenting its new gorgeous book “De Beers jewellery“, published by Assouline. Fendi will be organizing an event in partnership with the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach and Marc Jacobs will be partnering with the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. The Village of Merrick Park will host three FNO lounges, DJ music, informal modeling, lite bites and complimentary cocktails. Participating stores include Jimmy Choo, Diane Von Furstenberg, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom.

The cast of the internationally acclaimed TV series “Glee” was chosen to perform the song “Fashion” by David Bowie for the Fashion’s Night Out public announcement for Vogue magazine ( watch above video ).

An interesting piece of information needs to be added to the description of these fashion and shopping celebrations :  most events are organized in partnership with cultural organizations and charities and a portion of each retailer’s proceeds will benefit the selected organization.

A smart way to promote philanthropy to the hot crowd of  fashion trend-setters and followers.

For further information on Fashion’s Night Out worldwide events or to purchase FNO items, please visit : http://fashionsnightout.com

Photo from www.harlaneskine.com

Miami’s Design District is well-known for its high-end furniture and interior design showrooms, art galleries, sophisticated restaurants such as Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink, Senora Martinez, and trendy fashion boutiques such as German fashion designer Thomas Maier, French shoe designer Christian Louboutin or Italian fashion designer Marni. The area is actually going through an interesting remodeling project which may be phasing throughout the upcoming months. Indeed, Miami real estate developer Craig Robbins has recently partnered with French luxury goods LVMH group ( Louis Vuitton-Moet Hennessy ) to redesign some sections of the neighborhood and host a Louis Vuitton and a Christian Dior boutiques, which have both closed their Bal Harbour Shops venues a couple of months ago. These luxury fashion brands will obviously attract other high-end stores, entertainment venues and more traffic in the area. Property leases and purchase prices have already gone up since the partnership news was officially announced.

However, Miami’s Design District also hosts a variety of different entertainment venues, which are artist-run alternative exhibition spaces. The exhibition spaces are usually an extension of the artists work studios. One one side, there is a space where the artist(s) work(s), and on the other side or on another level, there is an exhibition space where the artist exhibits work from him/her or other artists he/she admires. These alternative spaces are usually located in transitional areas such as Little Havana, North Miami, however most of them are currently located in the Design District. These artist exhibition spaces may change location as the area is being redesigned, however, for now, four of these alternative spaces are featured a few minutes away from each other.

The most famous is probably Locust Projects, located at 155 NE 38th, suite 100, and founded in 1999 by artists Westen Charles, Cooper, and Elizabteth Withstandley. This is a purely exhibition space, which is not combining artist studios. Next to Locust Projects sits Dimensions Variable; run by artists Adler Guerrier and husband-and-wife artists Frances Trombly and Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova. The Buena Vista Building, located on NE Second Avenue and 39th Street is another space and home to The Bas Fisher Invitational, created in 2004 by artists Naomi Fisher and Hernan Bas and now managed by Naomi Fisher and her companion Jim Drain. Swampspace is located on 3821 NE 1st Court and is a smaller venue which hosts artist Oliver Sanchez’s studio.

These alternative exhibition spaces are not aimed at offering new art gallery spaces or competing with traditional galleries. There are more a way for artists to show their work or the work of the artists they appreciate in a more spontaneous and informal setting.

For further information on these artist exhibition spaces, please visit or email : www.locustprojects.org,  dv@dimensionsvariable.net,  www.basfisherinvitational.com,  swampstyle@gmail.com

For more information about Miami Spice or to view the list of participating restaurants, please visit : http://ilovemiamispice.com/

Miami-Dade Public Library in Downtown Miami ( Photo from www.panoramio.com )

The increase in property taxes over the past years in many Miami-Dade County cities despite the collapse of the real estate market led to the ouster of former county Mayor Carlos Alvarez in March. New county Mayor Carlos Gimenez had two weeks after his election to present a proposal for the county budget to county commissioners. A drastic $400 million budget cut and a new tax rate were presented, in order to reduce property taxes. Gimenez’s budget cuts focused on decreasing the number of county employees; laying off approximately 1,300 of them and shutting down 13 out of 49 public libraries. The news of shutting down 13 libraries drew a strong reaction in the community, from education-related non-for-profit organizations to lobbyists and government supporters. The reason for this negative reaction is justified. Public libraries are a valuable civic asset to the community, especially to low-income individuals and the elderly, as well as a place for gathering and exchange. Fortunately, earlier this week, county commissioners approved new Mayor’s budget but voted to spare 4 of the 13 libraries which were originally planned to be closed. Remaining libraries will apparently be operated differently and cuts will impact the number of county employees, the fire department and probably the arts community.

The Miami-Dade Public Library System does offer many programs which aim at enhancing adult and children literacy, such as L.E.A.D. ( Literacy for Every Adult in Dade ), the annual Art of Storytelling International Festival, and exposure to the arts through art exhibitions showcased in several libraries across the county. It has also been heard that the arts budget could be reduced, unfortunately leading to a potential decrease in funding arts projects by the Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs.

The overall county tax rate would be $9.74 for every $1,000 of taxable property.  Hearings are scheduled on September 8th and 22nd, which will lead to vote for the final county budget and tax rates for the new fiscal year starting in October 2011 and generate our upcoming property tax bills.

 Also, the 2nd Annual Ten By Ten Challenge organized by the Friends of the Miami-Dade Public Library began on June 1st, 2011. The goal is to get 10,000 people to donate $10 dollars each by October 10th to help support library programs and literacy. To participate, please visit : www.friendsofmdpl.org/

For further information about Miami-Dade Public Library System, please visit : www.mdpls.org

To read the proposed Miami-Dade County budget, please visit : http://www.miamidade.gov/budget/FY2011-12/proposed.asp