Bal Harbour Shops to open pop-up in Sarasota
By Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Feb 26, 2024

Bal Harbour Shops, a luxury shopping destination north of Miami, is bringing an exclusive pop-up to Sarasota.

Sarasota will be the second stop on the Bal Harbour Shops Access Pop-up Tour. The exclusive pop-up will feature 17,000 square feet of open-air shopping.

“With this roving Pop-up, we introduce a new and innovative solution at the crossroads of high-touch personal service and high-tech logistics, delivering on our mission to impress our guests with our distinctive level of excellence,” Matthew Whitman Lazenby, president and CEO of Whitman Family Development, said in a release.

The pop-up comprises 30 custom-built shipping containers and includes covered walkways, a retractable canopy, designer boutiques and the first-ever Bal Harbour Shops branded Restaurant The Whitman. The restaurant will feature 150 seats.

The tour will include brands like Tiffany & Co., Gianvito Rossi, Addict, Balmain, Eltro and Santa Maria Novella.

The first stop of the tour was in Raleigh, North Carolina. Sarasota will be its second stop, with future locations planned for Florida’s Walton County and Greenville, South Carolina.

Retailer Stanley Whitman opened Bal Harbor Shops in 1965. It was the first all-luxury fashion center in America that featured “high-end retailers in a tropical, open-air setting,” according to the release. The shopping mall in Bal Harbour includes waterfall features, koi ponds, tropical plants and palm trees and has ranked among the highest-grossing retail centers in the world.

New York-based LOT-EK Architecture and Design created the Bal Harbor Shops Access Pop-up. Sarasota’s grand opening event will be held on March 8 outside the University Town Center Mall.

"We're thrilled to bring the tropical luxury shopping and dining experience of Bal Harbour to Sarasota for the first time in our history,” Whitman Lazenby said in the release.