The luxury retail shopping experience is evolving across the southeastern U.S. beyond archetypal laminated glass and heavy door frames with repurposed shipping containers that offer a traveling excursion to buyers.
Bal Harbour Shops, an open-air mall near Miami, Florida, is redefining how consumers experience the lap of luxury. The nearly 60-year-old company has taken to the open road and set up shop for weeks at a time to provide consumers with an innovative day trip in parts of Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Recently, converted shipping container shops featuring Balmain, Dolce & Gabbana, Gianvito Rossi, Tiffany & Co. and Golden Goose, among other brands, can be found in West Palm Beach.
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“West Palm in Palm Beach County is growing, evolving and getting better and better,” Matthew Whitman Lazenby, managing partner of Whitman Family Properties, a real estate company, told FOX Business during a phone interview. “We frankly couldn’t imagine a better market.”
Born out of an attempt to “bottle” the family-owned Bal Harbour shopping experience and circulate new buyers, the real estate developers at Whitman, with the help of designers and fabricators, recreated the core of the existing shops to migrate from city to city.
“We’re not only selective in the markets we go to, but we’re also selective to what time of year,” Lazenby said.
Bal Harbour welcomed consumers in Destin, Florida, for weeks in the summer when the vacation destination was flooded with big-spending tourists.
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“We can essentially hit each market when it’s at its respective peak,” Lazenby added.
However, the high-end fashion installation was touring in Greenville, South Carolina, when Hurricane Helene struck the south in late September, which resulted in over 100 fatalities.
“We actually converted the pop-up in the last few weeks to a food service provider to help first responders get meals,” Lazenby said. “That was a great way for us to lean into these communities who are helping us and try to help them out in return.”
Lazenby, a Miami native, said the company is targeting similar markets until it becomes more comfortable operating further from HQ. He added that previous markets where they’ve hauled in containers were notably of ultra-high net worth but lacked access to luxury.
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“No one can make the argument that Palm Beach County lacks luxury,” Lazenby said.
However, Lazenby imagines visitors won’t harp on the reusable metal boxes as a venue. The shops are furnished from top to bottom with branded milk and honey and reserve some of the highest quality fashion goods money can buy.
“A shipping container used as a structure is irrelevant once put together,” Lazenby said. “It’s just a shopping center we can pick up and move.”
As a landlord, Lazenby stressed the visible waste produced when substituting one tenant for another.
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“No one wants to adopt or co-op the last tenant’s design,” he said. “It all gets demolished and thrown away. There’s a price to pay for that.”
Bal Harbour continues to journey through the south.
The pop-up will unlock doors in West Palm Beach beginning Nov. 15 with a grand opening and remain through the end of January.
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