Bigbox Retail Center Planned For Omni Area

By Marilyn Bowden
Bayview Market, a vertical retail center planned for the Omni area, will provide an option for big-box retailers looking to penetrate downtown Miami.

The $300 million project will rise on a 7.35-acre parcel at Northeast Second Avenue and Northeast Seventeenth Street, said Ignacio Garcia-DuQuesne, a partner with developer BDB Miami.

The site is the former home of Dick Fincher Oldsmobile.

Mr. Garcia DuQuesne said the project will accommodate three big-box users on the first three floors and two to four midsize retailers on the fourth level.

"We are looking for A-rated big-box retailer," Mr. Garcia-DuQuesne said. "It’s a bulls-eye location, and because of the easy access provided via I-95 and I-395 as well as the MacArthur and Venetian causeways, we have a larger-than-average market area of over 600,000 people.

"We feel this is the biggest underserved big-box retail market in the country," Mr. Garcia-DuQuesne said. "We are in negotiations and close to getting commitments for the big-box spaces."

One likely tenant is Lowe’s. "We have not officially closed yet," said Jennifer S. Smith, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina-based home-improvement retailer. "But we are under an agreement with the developer."

Ms. Smith said the store planned for the bottom level of the Bayview complex would contain 117,000 square feet of indoor retail space and an adjacent garden center of 26,000 square feet. "A store of this size represents an average investment for Lowe’s of $18.5 million and creates up to 175 jobs," she said.

Mr. Garcia-DuQuesne said Bayview Market, planned in collaboration with the Miami Community Redevelopment Agency, will provide 2,360 parking spaces with a state-of-the-art security system and high-power lighting.

"There will be two parking levels per floor, so customers will have easy access to individual boxes," he said. "The floors will be level to ease the movement of shopping carts, and the facility has been upgraded to include wider ramps to improve access."

The parking structure will be wrapped by 24 to 30 residential loft-style units facing the street, he said. He said his company has not decided whether the units will be for sale or rent.

Site improvements will get under way before the end of the year, Mr. Garcia-DuQuesne said. Construction, which will be self-financed, will likely begin in the first quarter of next year. A late-2008 opening is anticipated.

BDB Miami is a partnership of Mr. Garcia-DuQuesne, managing director of Panorama Development Co.; Michael Bisciotti, formerly of the Rouse Co. and JMB Realty of Chicago; Frank Rosenblum, a former Jacksonville developer; and Jeff Weil, formerly of the Rouse Co. and Aronov Co. Advertisement