West Elm Picks Downtown Dadeland for South Florida Debut

The $165-million, seven-building, mixed-use Downtown Dadeland is a joint venture between locally based Gulfside Development Co. and Los Angeles-based Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund, which is a subsidiary of Earvin Magic Johnson's Johnson Development Corp. It encompasses 416 residential condominiums, parking for 569 vehicles and 125,000 sf of retail.

In September 2005, Mindy McIlroy, director of leasing for Miami Beach-based Terranova Corp., took over the retail leasing from Prime Sites Inc. and, with the West Elm transaction and others, has regained space initially committed to tenants, including Pier 1, that terminated their agreements. "Some had a change in their real estate roll-out plans," McIlroy tells GlobeSt.com.

"We have replaced those vacancies and are again 60% preleased," she says. Additional national retail tenants are: the Children's Place, Chili's, Bombay Co., Men's Wearhouse and Sprint Cellular. They join several regional and local tenants, including Blu restaurant, Blue Moon Thai and Bacio Gelato. "We are in lease negotiation stages for another approximately 30,000 sf," she says, "and expect to move toward closing those transactions within the next 30 to 60 days."

Downtown Dadeland occupies about 7.5 acres at 6100 SW 76th St. and SW Kendall Drive immediately adjacent to Metrorail's Dadeland South terminal. Its delivery is progressing in stages with the first building set for completion this May. The last of the seven is expected to reach completion in January 2007.