With 8 million visitors a year, owners predict a thriving horizon on the city’s busy avenue
Miami Beach’s Morris Lapidus-designed Lincoln Road outdoor mall expects the arrival of five businesses by the end of October, including Hoka, Nike, Adidas and Itsugar. These new additions tie in with renovation plans that seek to revitalize this space, which last underwent a major remodel in 1960.
The Lincoln Road mall, with traffic of 8 million visitors a year, stretches from Alton Road to the Ritz-Carlton South Beach hotel and the Decoplage condominium building. Despite past efforts to improve the retail promenade, such as the proposed James Corner Field streetscape plan in 2015 and the idea of redeveloping several parking lots in 2020, no proposal had come to fruition until now. The arrival of new retail may portend a favorable change on the horizon.
In this context, according to the Miami Herald, support has also been obtained from the Miami Beach Historic Preservation Board for the construction of a new condominium tower behind the Ritz-Carlton South Beach. This project is a public-private partnership between the families that own the South Beach Ritz-Carlton and Sagamore hotels, Kanavos, Lowenstein and Ben-Josef, and the city. The approval includes a community incentive in the form of funding for improvements to a portion of Lincoln Road.
Despite the promise these renovations hold for the Lincoln Road Mall, not everyone is happy. Some residents and preservationists expressed displeasure with the construction of the 15-story building behind the Ritz-Carlton by claiming it would threaten the distinctive South Beach skyline. However, most members of the city’s Historic Preservation Board supported the move at an Oct. 10 meeting.
In addition to the architectural renovations, the last three eastern blocks of the mall, those closest to the beach, will receive landscaping interventions that will include the installation of a pavilion, trees, flowers and a monument known as the “Lapidus Arch” that architect Morris Lapidus had originally planned for his Lincoln Road design.