The village looks the same from Collins Avenue. Same royal palms, same low-rise skyline, same valets in white polos. Then you try to turn into 9700 Collins on a Wednesday morning and the driveway is barricaded, the signage points you toward the 96th Street garage, and you realize the property you thought of as "the mall down the street" has been operating as a construction site for the better part of two years.
For residents, the interesting question isn't what stores will open. It's what happens when a 60-year-old open-air shopping center nearly doubles in size and starts positioning itself as the neighborhood's living room instead of its errand stop. That shift is already underway, and the calendar for the rest of 2026 makes it hard to ignore.
The February 24 closure was the tell
The moment the change stopped feeling abstract was February 24, 2026, when the 9700 Collins Avenue entrance and exit closed. If you live in one of the Collins corridor buildings and used to swing in for a coffee or a return, your muscle memory stopped working overnight.
Here is what the new choreography looks like, per the property's own instructions:
- Self-park, valet, and rideshare drop-off all route through the 96th Street Parking Garage.
- From 96th Street, you enter through the garage walkway.
- You take the elevator to the second, or "green," level.
- You exit left and follow signage into the Shops.
The 96th Street garage walkway, elevator to the 2nd/GREEN Level, and a left turn into the Shops is now the default choreography, and it will remain that way through the balance of construction. The reason this matters isn't the inconvenience. It's that the property is training every regular visitor to enter from a different side of the block, which is how you reorient a neighborhood without anyone voting on it.
What is actually opening, and when
Three dining developments have shifted the culinary center of gravity within the property itself.
China Grill returned on June 9
The China Grill originally opened in Miami Beach on September 27, 1995, and reopened at the entrance of Bal Harbour Shops on June 9, ushering in a new era for one of the city's most influential dining institutions. Founder Jeffrey Chodorow first debuted the concept in New York in 1987, and the Miami return closes a chapter that South Beach diners have been discussing since the original closed. Hours run Sunday through Thursday from noon to 11 p.m., and Friday and Saturday until midnight, which is a later close than the property has historically supported.
Slim's arrives in spring
Stephen Starr will open Slim's, a steakhouse set to debut in spring 2026 at Bal Harbour Shops, taking over the original home of Makoto, which relocated to a larger space in 2022. The room leans into midcentury cinema references rather than the tropical-modern language most of the property speaks. Starr is not a newcomer here. Makoto opened in 2011 under Stephen Starr, elevating Bal Harbour's culinary profile to match its fashion pedigree. Slim's is the second act.
The neighbors are moving too
Outside the Shops themselves, BH Prime is the new signature steakhouse at The St. Regis Bal Harbour Resort, a concept that blends steakhouse tradition with contemporary sophistication, and Artisan Beach House at the Ritz-Carlton continues its oceanfront seafood program at the intersection of the Atlantic and the Intracoastal. Longstanding rooms including Carpaccio, Hillstone, Makoto in its third-floor incarnation, Café on 3 at Neiman Marcus, and Avenue 31 Café round out the current dining bench.
"We're evolving into a true 24/7 destination, where people don't just shop, but live, work and stay."
That's Matthew Whitman Lazenby, the fourth-generation president and CEO of Whitman Family Development, describing the endgame to The Purist. It's the sentence residents should take literally.
The scale change, in numbers residents can feel
A shopping center adding a wing is not, by itself, a neighborhood story. The proportions here are.
| Metric | Bal Harbour Shops, pre-expansion | Post-expansion target |
|---|---|---|
| Total footprint | ~450,000 sq ft | ~700,000 sq ft |
| Tenants | 130+ | 170+ (roughly 30 additions plus relocations) |
| Employees | ~1,200 | ~2,000 |
| Investment | — | $550M project, backed by a $740M loan |
The footprint number comes from the property's own guides, which describe a $550 million, 200,000 to 250,000 sq ft expansion that will nearly double Bal Harbour Shops to approximately 700,000 sq ft. On the workforce side, Lazenby said the retail growth will enlarge Bal Harbour Shops' workforce to about 2,000 employees from the current 1,200, and Whitman Family Development recently secured a $740 million loan to fund construction and continued growth.
Read those rows together. Adding 800 workers to a village that measures well under a square mile is a traffic story, a lunch-hour story, and a parking story before it is a retail story. The 96th Street garage rerouting isn't temporary construction management. It's a preview.
The tenant mix is shifting up, not sideways
The new leases aren't filler. Space in the expansion will be occupied by luxury brands entering Bal Harbour Shops, such as Dior, Cartier, Gabriela Hearst and Eden Gallery Art, and others such as Graff, Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Bottega Veneta and Burberry relocating existing stores to the expansion, typically with larger spaces. For a resident, the practical effect is that boutiques already at the property are getting rebuilt at bigger footprints while a second tier of maisons moves in behind them.
That is a different consumer experience than the one Bal Harbour has offered for a decade. A property that ran at sales per square foot of $2,000 to $3,400 annually, with 100% occupancy and a tenant waiting list did not need to grow. Choosing to grow anyway is a bet on staying power, and it's the bet residents should factor into how they think about the corridor.
A weekend, rewritten
Compare a typical resident Saturday two years ago against what the property is engineered to support by late 2026.
| Old Saturday | New Saturday |
|---|---|
| Coffee at home, quick errand at the Shops, beach in the afternoon | Coffee at Café on 3 or Avenue 31, browse a relocated flagship, lunch at Hillstone or Carpaccio |
| Dinner reservation off-island, usually South Beach or Sunny Isles | Dinner at China Grill, Slim's, Makoto, or BH Prime, all within a five-minute walk |
| The Shops as errand infrastructure | The Shops as the primary weekend anchor |
The trip you used to leave the village to complete is now designed to happen inside it. That is the definition of a 24/7 destination, and it's what Lazenby has been telegraphing for years.
The 60th anniversary set the tone
Earlier this month, Bal Harbour Shops invited more than 1,000 guests to celebrate its 60th anniversary with a series of immersive moments that paid homage to the last six decades. Live performances by Chaka Khan and the Gipsy Kings turned the celebration into a night of pure magic. That November 2025 gala functioned as the property's soft launch for the expansion narrative. If you were a resident and skipped it, the messaging still reached you. It's the reason your favorite boutique is behind plywood right now.
What's next after the retail phase
The 200,000-plus square feet of stores and restaurants is only the first move. Bal Harbour Shops has unveiled a transformation plan to develop market-rate and affordable housing and a five-star hotel, adding to its retail expansion in progress and ultimately creating a "village center." Of the 528 residential units planned, 300 would be at market rates and 228 affordable.
For residents of Bal Harbour and the adjacent buildings along Collins, the housing and hotel phase is the one to watch. It's what turns a shopping center into a mixed-use district and starts changing the demographics of the sidewalk on a weekday morning. It is also years away from breaking ground, so the next 18 months belong to the retail and dining phase.
What this actually means if you already live here
A few practical takeaways for residents, before this becomes a real estate conversation.
- Your Saturday afternoon parking pattern needs a rewrite. The 96th Street garage is now the front door, and it will be through the balance of construction.
- Reservations at China Grill, and eventually Slim's, will trend hard the first six months. If you have visiting family in July, book in May.
- The property is going to feel busier at odd hours. A midweek dinner crowd is part of the design brief, not an accident.
- The boutiques you already loved are, in many cases, reopening bigger down the block from where you remember them. Check the directory before you walk in.
The Shops have been an amenity in Bal Harbour since 1965. What is changing now is the ratio. For the first time in the property's history, the destination and the village are converging on the same footprint. If you already own a home here, the value of what you own has just been re-anchored to a property that is spending more than half a billion dollars to justify the address.
If you would like a private conversation about how the expansion is shaping resale demand and pre-construction opportunity along the Collins corridor, Wolsen Real Estate works this micro-market every day and is glad to walk you through it. Book an Appointment when it suits you.
