Monocle’s editorial director Tyler Brûlé joins the CEO of Miami’s Bal Harbour shops, Matthew Whitman Lazenby. Bal Harbour is a family-run retail mammoth with almost 60 years of history. Whitman Lazenby discusses how it will maintain its charm as it prepares for major expansion to its premises, and why footfall is booming, now more than ever.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this seasonal special of the Chiefs, whether sorting through the racks at Le Beaumarchais in Paris or pottering around the stores of Seyfeld, we know our listeners will have what makes for a satisfying retail experience fresh in their minds.
To look ahead to Bricks and Mortar's future, we cross the Atlantic to Florida to meet Matthew Whitman Lazenby, CEO of the iconic family run luxury retail complex Miami's Bal Harbour Shops.
In our conversation, we take a look at why Bal Harbour's numbers are reaching historic highs and why the renowned intimate approach to design and layout of their space won't be forgotten as they look towards a major expansion.
Plus how to maintain the all important emotional connection to the customer.
And we find out which tenants are at the top of Lazenby's Christmas Wishlist.
I'm Tyler Brule and Zurich and this is the Chiefs on Monocle 24.
Matthew, thanks very much for joining us.
Maybe it would be great to kick off, give us a little bit of a snapshot the scene in Bal Harbour right now.
We're just in the run up to the Christmas period.
We're just really in the midst off the back of Art Basel.
How do things look at the moment?
This period of time, of course in the retail world is crunch time.
So coming off of course, a global pandemic as we are Art Basel last year being canceled, there is a lot of pent up demand and it is fair to say that people are back with a vengeance.
We tend to track vehicle traffic with the most reliable data.
That's been up double digits really all year long.
That's astounding, I think, for anyone.
But considering that we're under construction, we have a number of parking spaces that have gone offline because of that.
We were really budgeting for flat to falling levels and I'm thrilled to say that we got that wrong.
What do you put that down to?
On one side you could of course go and look at the overall Florida approach.