By Elaine Walker
The Miami Herald
March 28, 2011
Louis Vuitton is ready to redesign South Florida's luxury retail market.
Executives of the French brand known for its trademark handbags and accessories said they will leave the Bal Harbour Shops at the end of June and move to Aventura Mall where they will eventually more than double the size of their store.
Also on the agenda: opening a second store in the burgeoning Miami Design District by 2014.
The news is a blow to the dominance of the Bal Harbour Shops, which in 1965 created the concept of luxury retail in South Florida and has consistently ranked as one of the industry's top performing malls.
Louis Vuitton's arrival will help Aventura Mall continue to elevate its merchandise mix. For Miami's Design District, this could be the catalyst to turn the area into a fashion destination akin to SoHo or New York City's Meatpacking District. Expected to follow Louis Vuitton's lead are at least some — or possibly all — of the other brands owned by parent-company Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy that currently have stores at Bal Harbour.
Louis Vuitton's lease at the Bal Harbour Shops expires at the end of June. Louis Vuitton then opens a temporary store at Aventura on July 1, with plans to begin construction of a two-story flagship store at Aventura to open in fall 2012. Plans for the Design District are still being finalized.
Geoffroy Van Raemdonck, president of Louis Vuitton North America, said the brand decided it needed a bigger store in South Florida than Bal Harbour could accommodate and also did not want to be limited to one store in the market. Bal Harbour's leases prohibit tenants from opening a second store within 20 miles unless Bal Harbour's owners receive a percentage of the additional store revenue.
"We believe that this market deserves more than one free-standing store," Van Raemdonck said. "We feel that we are not reaching the customers if we have only one store in the market. We want to give them multiple chances to experience the brand in its full notoriety."
The move is particularly dramatic because Louis Vuitton was one of Bal Harbour's oldest and most successful tenants. The brand has been there for about 30 years, when it chose the site for its first U.S. location outside of New York.
Louis Vuitton's Miami-Dade presence beyond Bal Harbour had been limited to departments within Bloomingdale's in Aventura and Neiman Marcus at the Village of Merrick Park. Palm Beach County has three stores: Worth Avenue, Town Center at Boca Raton and The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens.
Industry experts view Louis Vuitton's decision as a sign of things to come with luxury brands under pressure to grow.
"It may not be as sexy today to have Aventura on your bag as it is to have Bal Harbour," said Arthur Weiner, principal of AWE Talisman, a Coral Gables firm that handles retail leasing and development. "In these days, sexy gets put in second place. Sales and profitability get in first place. If Louis Vuitton trades a single-store strategy for a north and south location, there is no doubt that their sales would increase by three- or fourfold."
On a temporary basis, the Louis Vuitton store at Aventura will be located in the former Barney's Co-Op store. The permanent Louis Vuitton store will be more than twice the size of the existing Bal Harbour location, with a grand staircase connecting the two floors.
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