Josh Stein

Miami offers a variety of specialty shops, boutiques, and shopping malls that rival some of the best in the world. Wealthy Miami socialites, international celebrities, and well-dressed shoppers put on their most glamorous clothing to stroll in the open-air emporium of Bal Harbour Shops featuring high end luxury retailers, cafes, covered walkways, and lush greenery. Since its opening in 1965, the majority of the luxury retailers in Miami have been concentrated in Bal Harbour Shops, but this will soon change. Shops and boutiques which made the Bal Harbour ground zero for high-end fashions are now looking outside the open air plaza and instead setting up shop in Aventura Mall and in Miami’s Design District.

Louis Vuitton is leading the South Florida luxury retail market redesign. The luxury retail giant pulled out of Bal Harbour in summer 2011 after 30 years to relocate to a space in Aventura Mall nearly double in size. Louis Vuitton also announced plans to open a store in the Design District in 2014, joining luxury shoe designer Christian Louboutin. Louis Vuitton’s plans could play a major role in putting Miami’s Design District on the fashion map and helping raise Aventura Mall’s luxury profile.

Already a popular destination for dining and upscale home décor, the Design District aims to become an alternative destination for luxury shopping akin to SoHo or New York City’s Meat Packing District. The mix of luxury fashion brands in the Design District had been limited to Christian Louboutin and Marni but the presence of a Louis Vuitton flagship store will validate the neighborhood and attract other luxury retailers. 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. Representatives for companies like Christian Dior and Hermes say their clientele and accessibility is changing, and like Louis Vuitton, they are adjusting to meet these needs.

Although Bal Harbour is experiencing change, don’t count them out. In 2011, the mall posted its best year with sales totaling more than $2,000 per square ft., this is over 5 times more any other malls in the country. There is a huge demand for space in the mall, with a long wait list for tenancy.

The neighborhood of Bal Harbour is more popular now than ever with the recent opening of the St. Regis Resort & Residences in Bal Harbour, the most luxurious and exclusive building ever built in the area. Located on over 9 acres of pristine oceanfront property, St. Regis stands on the existing site of the Sheraton Bal Harbour, on Collins Avenue directly across from the Bal Harbour Shops. The residents and guests of the St. Regis and surrounding properties are the demographic that Bal Harbour Shops caters to, however, this demographic is not the only one that supports the luxury retail market.

The upscale Bal Harbour environment may not be for everyone, but thanks to the recent fashion mix up, shoppers can now choose a shopping destination that best suits their personality and still be able to enjoy luxury offerings. If you prefer the excitement of shopping in a mammoth mall, visit Aventura; if you enjoy a leisurely stroll in upscale open air setting, Bal Harbour is for you; if you prefer the energy of a creative up and coming urban destination, take a walk through the Design District. Regardless of your choice, you will have variety of luxury brands to choose from.

The 1980s and early 1990s brought a multi-billion dollar infusion of investment capital that produced a beautiful new Miami downtown skyline, a reborn Miami Beach, a modernized transportation infrastructure and a new way of life that features betters aspects of modern art, culture, sports and entertainment, all with a mostly international Latin accent. Although it has changed almost beyond recognition, Miami Beach has thrived amidst change and overcome many difficulties. The City of Miami Beach continues to be an international Mecca for travel, business and to establish a home.

Over the past few years, the Miami Beach Real Estate market has weathered the storm with seemingly no problems. South of Fifth (or SoFi as it is referred to) is an exclusive neighborhood located at the southernmost tip of South Beach. It is considered the most exclusive part of Miami Beach for ultra-luxury high-end condos. SoFi has experienced a spike in buyer interest starting in 2009 and continued throughout 2011. There is a relatively constrained supply of condo properties, meaning what is currently built likely represents the majority of the supply for the future. Demand for luxury condos, on the other hand, has continued to remain strong making Apogee, the two Continuum Towers, Murano at Portofino, Portofino Towers, Murano Grande and Icon South Beach, the most affluent and exclusive condominium buildings in Miami Beach.

Most of the properties that have sold in 2011 have closed at $1+ million plus. In December 2011 the Setai Penthouse sold for $21.5 million….in 2011 four properties sold for around $20 million in Miami Beach. The buying trend in South Beach and SoFi is led by International buyers who are coming into the market with plenty of cash to spend. 2011 was a HOT year for the luxury real estate market in Miami Beach and 2012 is projected to heat up even more.

Mainstream America’s fixation with Miami is expressed in numerous Miami based TV series, movies, and reality shows. Here are a few of my favorites.

SCARFACE

The cocaine trade in Miami became synonymous with the city through pop culture. In 1983, the mega movie Scarface immortalized the glamour and danger of the criminal business through Al Pacino’s character Tony Montana, whose violent takeover of a Miami cartel turned him into a cult hero.

While the film is about Miami only 20 percent of the film was made in Miami. The politics surrounding the filming were even more extreme than Scarface’s violence. The Cuban exile community were not at all pleased with the story of Scarface, “The basic message of the movie seems to be drugs, killing, and criminal activities. That does not represent the majority of hard-working and law-abiding Cubans,” said Eduardo Padron, then head of the Spanish-American League Against Discrimination. Then-Miami city Commissioner Demetrio Perez Jr. threatened to deny film permits unless Montana was recast as a Communist agent who infiltrated the United States at Castro’s behest. Out of frustration, Scarface producer Martin Bregman later he declared the movie would be shot elsewhere.

Take a stroll down South Beach today and you will still find Scarface posters and memorabilia in specialty shops, tourists still associate Miami Beach with Scarface. Check out this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3g5cTqIniA – tourists snap pictures of the Tony Montana chainsaw scene location in Miami Beach.

MIAMI VICE

Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989, made a hero of a white sport-coated Don Johnson as he battled drug criminals funded by the big-money cartels. The series starred Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami.

Today, South Beach is known for trendy restaurants and nightclubs, brightly painted hotels packed with tourists, upscale fashion and expensive restaurants. The airing of Miami Vice coincided with the early days of the rebirth of Miami Beach’s southern end, helping to create a new image for South Beach and Miami. The show was filmed on location throughout the beach, drawing tourists eager to see Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas playing Crockett and Tubbs in their signature Ray-Bans.

When the TV show Miami Vice began filming, set designers turned empty storefronts into makeshift businesses and painted older hotels in pastel colors to give them a clean look….reality quickly followed.

By 1989, South Beach’s rebirth was in full swing. Celebrities in town for movie shoots — like Madonna and Sylvester Stallone — took a liking to the area. Millionaires began buying homes and luxury condos.

COCAINE COWBOYS

The 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys became a runaway hit as it rehashed the coke scene’s over-the-top glamour and violence. Cocaine Cowboys is the true story of how Miami became the drug, murder and cash capital of the United States, told by the people who made it all happen. The films producers interviewed law enforcement, journalists, lawyers, former drug smugglers and gang members to provide a first hand perspective of the Miami drug war.

The film shows that much of the economic growth which took place in Miami during this time period was a benefit of the drug trade. Drug dealers spent heavily and money flowed in large amounts into legitimate businesses. Drug money indirectly financed the construction of many of the modern luxury high-rise buildings in Miami Beach.

Miami Beach is much more than a tropical paradise and a popular tourist destination, it is rich with history, culture, and some of the most amazing and unique architecture in the world. In the mid-1930s, the Art Deco district of Miami Beach was developed. Art Deco is the most prevalent and recognizable style of architecture in Miami Beach. Art Deco is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The Miami Beach Art Deco District contains the largest concentration of Art Deco resort architecture in the world, with some thirty blocks of vibrantly colored hotels and apartment houses dating from the 1920s to the 1940s. These buildings represent an era when Miami was heavily promoted and developed as a “tropical playground.”

Art Deco continues to be a popular style among buyers coming to the South Beach market. I have sold more art deco properties than I can count and I enjoy discovering the unique attributes to each Art Deco properties, no two being the same.

Click here to read more of this article – http://blog.joshsteinrealtor.com/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-art-deco/

From a tangled jungle of mangroves, to developers goldmine, to cocaine capital, and now as one of the top international tourist destinations the story of Miami Beach is indeed a fascinating one. This 5-part blog series will take you on a journey spanning nearly 100 years…the story of Miami Beach, the place I call home and ultimately one of the most amazing places in the world to live and play. By the time you finish reading the series you will certainly want to visit and you may want to join me and call Miami Beach ‘home’.

PART I: EARLY MIAMI HISTORY, The Vision of Carl Fisher

Miami Beach was developed in 1913 when a two-mile (3 km) wooden bridge built by John Collins was completed. The Town of Miami Beach was chartered on March 26, 1915; it grew to become a City in 1917.

The effort to develop the beach into a resort destination began in the early 20th century by the Collins/Pancoast family, the Lummus brothers (bankers from Miami), and Indianapolis entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher. Until then, the beach was only the destination for day-trips by ferry from Miami, across the bay. There were bathhouses and food stands, but no hotel until Brown’s Hotel was built in 1915 (still standing, at 112 Ocean Drive).

Carl Fisher was the main promoter of Miami Beach’s development in the 1920s as the site for wealthy industrialists from the north and midwest to build their winter homes here. Fisher was famous for purchasing a huge lighted billboard in New York’s Times Square proclaiming “Its June In Miami”. In addition, Fisher built five hotels here (none still surviving). This marked the start of a real estate bubble in Florida. Miami had an image as a tropical paradise and outside investors across the United States began taking an interest in Miami real estate.

In the 1920s, Fisher and others literally created much of Miami Beach as landfill by dredging Biscayne Bay; this manmade territory includes Star, Palm, and Hibiscus Islands, the Sunset Islands, much of Normandy Isle, and all of the Venetian Islands except Belle Isle. Click on the video link below for a comprehensive history of Miami Beach.

VIDEO BLOG: Miami Beach: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

PART II: “The Birth of Art Deco” Coming Soon…