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Shopping Centers Today -> January 2003
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WORTH THE WAIT
Nearly a century after its start, Coral Gables gets an upscale shopping district
By ebra Hazel
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It may have taken more than 75 years, but the planned community of Coral Gables, Fla., finally has the shopping that its founder, George Merrick, always wanted.
The $500 million Village of Merrick Park, though, which began opening last summer, goes far beyond anything he ever envisioned. By midsummer the 20-acre site, at Ponce de Leon Boulevard and Avenue San Lorenzo, will hold 800,000 square feet of designer and upscale retail, plus an office building and two residential buildings. Nor could Merrick have foreseen the difficulties that developer The Rouse Co. would face before the project’s Sept. 27, 2002, debut, including a lawsuit from a nearby mall and a tangle of municipal red tape.
“This project was challenging in its complexity,” said Jerry Smalley, Rouse vice chairman and COO. “We faced many obstacles.”
Merrick created Coral Gables, south Florida’s first planned community, on the site of his family’s grapefruit plantation in 1925. Inspired by such planned towns as Shaker Heights, Ohio, Merrick conceived of a series of ethnic villages, each with its distinct architecture, said Arva Parks, a Miami-based historian who is writing a biography of Merrick.
“He was the father of the great Florida boom,” said Parks, a former chairman of the local historical preservation society and an adviser to Rouse’s architects. “Coral Gables became a national phenomenon.”
But a hurricane in 1926 and the advent of the Great Depression derailed Merrick’s plans for further development, which included two shopping areas. By 1928 Merrick, heavily in debt, was removed from the Coral Gables Commission and forced out of Coral Gables, according to the Historical Museum of Southern Florida. He and his wife moved to Matecumbe Key, where they managed a resort, returning to Coral Gables in the late 1930s, where, still in debt, Merrick died in 1942.
The city eventually acquired eight industrial acres, which it used as a yard to store heavy equipment. When in 1996 Coral Gables decided to build retail on the site, it chose Rouse, builder of such urban projects as Boston’s Faneuil Hall and Baltimore’s Harborplace, as developer. Rouse quickly signed up Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom for the affluent market, which, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, boasted a median household income of nearly $67,000 in 1999. The developer acquired additional property, expanding it to 20 acres.
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Working with Berkeley, Calif.-based ELS Architecture and Urban Design, Rouse designed an open-air village concept that would link Merrick Park to the rest of Coral Gables, breaking ground in March 2000.
The project consists of an Italianate square surrounding a garden atrium, with a street grid that includes major thoroughfares. Retailers occupy two- and three-story buildings around the square. A 110,000-square-foot office building is connected to Nordstrom by a pedestrian bridge off the square. Restaurants and residential buildings line one side of the square.
In a design that Parks calls “Mediterranean Revival revival,” tenants are clustered around a 4.5-acre urban garden lined by 25-foot-high royal palms. Water features, bronze sculptures and Italian glass tile murals decorate the space. Travertine stone invokes the coral that symbolizes the city.
“It’s pretty spectacular,” said Arthur Weiner, president of Aventura, Fla.-based Arthur Weiner Enterprises, who did most of the mall’s leasing. “It’s one of the few shopping centers I’ve been to that is its own space.”
Though the open format helped draw designer tenants accustomed to urban locations, such as Sonia Rykiel, getting some upscale stores proved a challenge. Leases at The Shops at Bal Harbour, the tony open-air mall some 14 miles to the north, included a strict radius clause that kept potential tenants from opening at Merrick Park. The clause made a lot of sense when Bal Harbour opened in 1965, Weiner acknowledged. But the growth of household incomes throughout the region since then means that additional high-end retail could be accommodated without hurting Bal Harbour. So in early 2002 Rouse filed a restraint-of-trade suit against the Shops, and the dispute was settled out of court in April 2002. Now La Perla, Roberto Cavalli, Tiffany and Tourneau will have stores at both projects.
The Village has signed 40 retailers new to the market, including Nordstrom and day spa Elemis. Ten of them, including couture retailer Bagutta and Carolina Herrera, are new to the United States. A full-time concierge provides multilingual services, area maps and information.
“We have exceeded our dreams in merchandising,” Weiner said.
Tenants have been clustered for ease of shopping. The first level between the anchors is dominated by luxury retail, with the second housing Bebe, Ann Taylor and other mid-price national tenants. The third level, called the Veranda, largely features home furnishings tenants, including silk bedding designer Ann Gish, Scandinavian furniture store Möbler and Rugs by Zhaleh. The restaurant zone includes Norman Van Aken’s Mundo, Palm and Pescado.
The mall opened 94 percent leased, but only 60 percent of the tenants were actually ready for the September debut. The city’s permitting process delayed certificates of occupancy for some 16 retailers, mostly the designers.
“The rules changed on an hourly basis,” said Weiner.
Despite these and other travails, Rouse officials said they expect sales of between $600 and $700 per square foot this year, with a potential for $1,000 per square foot in three years, which would put the project on a par with the world’s leading proects, including Bal Harbour and The Forum Shops in Las Vegas.
The Village has a lot of promise, according to an early analysis by Morgan Stanley. “We believe the mall’s ongoing lease-up and very strong design, local demographics and tenant base will cause economics to improve measurably going forward.”
The Village’s office component debuted in the summer, and retail continues to open. The residential buildings, consisting of one- and two-bedroom rental units, will open this summer.
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