Why is Aventura Mall both loved and loathed? It comes down to more than shopping

The view from the top of the slide tower, 93 feet up, is daunting.

Seven stories tickle the sky. The courtyard below looks small. But you settle onto a scratchy wool mat and propel yourself forward, plunging to the ground.

Exhilaration! But this isn’t a theme park.

We’re at a mall.

Aventura Mall is 41 years old, but has discovered something that sets it apart from other shopping centers. It wants to entertain you.

So unlike the “dying malls” across the country, Aventura not only has 300 stores, but also 50 restaurants, art installations, dog parks — and attractions like German artist Carsten Höller’s Aventura Slide Tower.

The Northeast Miami-Dade complex, which draws at least 30 million annual visitors a year — many of them tourists from South America —is an attraction.

And with attractions comes traffic. The jams surrounding the mall should yield an American Heart Association warning for all the clogged arteries. Gridlock can bring the area to a halt, with backups to, from and on Ives Dairy Road and Interstate 95. Locals weary of the slow-ups have even given the area a nickname: “Aventorture.”

When the mall at 19501 Biscayne Blvd. opened four decades ago, there were nights when not a single customer wandered into the B. Dalton Bookseller store, and the French bakery next door tossed hundreds of unsold pastries into the dumpster at closing time.

Now, the mall can sometimes be a victim of its own success, especially this time of year.

The power of Aventura Mall, the fifth largest mall in the U.S. and largest in Florida, compels you to visit despite the traffic. The parking garages and surface lots are free. Only Mall of America in Minnesota, American Dream in New Jersey, King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania and South Coast Plaza in California are larger, according to World Atlas. Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise ranks No. 10.

“Why are we so successful?” ponders Jackie Soffer, chairman and CEO of Turnberry Associates, the real estate development group that has principle ownership of the mall. Simon Property Group has a 33.3% ownership share but Turnberry manages the mall.

“Because I have some secret sauce? it’s not, ” Soffer said in an interview with the Miami Herald at the mall. “Obviously, we work hard at keeping and creating the experience.”

The retail world is changing. Amazon deliveries. Big-box stores. Outlet centers. So Aventura Mall has been changing, too. The key to success focuses on restaurants and entertainment. Oh, and shopping, too, of course.

“We’re aware of the competition and of what the competition is doing,” Soffer said, “and what’s around us and are keeping ourselves relevant and keeping ourselves current.”

Soffer names three of Aventura’s current shops, one long established, two trendier to add to her example.

“There was a day when Abercrombie was where all the youth wanted to go buy their clothing. Now they want to go to Skims and Aritzia. So we’re staying abreast of what’s going on in the world, popular brands, keeping abreast of what’s happening with the local community and keeping ourselves relevant,” she said.

A mix of old and new stores and tweaks here and there have served Aventura Mall well for years.

“The location is situated in the middle of one of the best trade areas in South Florida with some of the lowest vacancy rates in the tri-county,” said retail specialist Danny Diaz, first vice president at CBRE: Global Real Estate Services. “It’s also easily accessible to the general public and the ownership group helped created a surrounding community that accentuates the mall’s brand and image.”

Aventura Mall food scene

Food is a big part of the mall. When Aventura opened in 1983, the mall featured a traditional food court with the familiar mix of fast food found at Any Mall U.S.A. Tacos. Bourbon chicken. Subs. But during a third mall expansion, a $214 million investment in 2017, Aventura scrapped the food court in favor of a higher-end food hall.

The changeover from Chicken Kitchen and Asian Chao to Caribbean-inspired bowls at Jrk! and Mediterranean marvels at Yalla Motek made a world of difference. By 2018, The Daily Meal noticed and pronounced Aventura Mall’s trendier Treats Hall the best food court in Florida. The food critics were also dishing on the fare at modern restaurants like My Ceviche, Luke’s Lobster and GoGo Fresh.

Then there are the trendy free-standing restaurants like Motek, a Mediterranean restaurant that has won the Burger Bash competition at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival.

Like the retail mix that favors the familiar Abercrombie with the au courant Aritzia and an Apple Store with a coming Prada, Treats takes in a family friendly blend of Chipotle and Shake Shack with Sproutz and the coming Eataly food hall concept in 2025.

Eataly is designed to replicate the experience of visiting Italy. Customers can gather to eat, learn about Italian food and then shop for supplies to re-create the dishes at home.

That culinary addition, for instance, will be Eataly’s first entry into Florida in the spring. A second will follow later in fall 2025 at CityPlace in downtown West Palm Beach. Aventura’s Eataly could have mallgoers imagining they are on a stroll through Italy just above the Louis Vuitton store in the Nordstrom wing.

Along with the immersive dining experiences, Aventura’s AMC 24 Theatre remains a mainstay “experience” of the mall. Sure, you can stream new Netflix hits like “Carry-On” and “Hot Frosty” at home now, but you can also opt for the communal vibe “Wicked” casts at the cinema or Barry Jenkins’ just-opened “Mufasa: The Lion King.”

Art installations

Aventura Mall also plays Aventura art gallery. It’s part of the “experiential” strategy to lure and keep customers on site.

In addition to the Carsten Höller Slide Tower, installations include:

▪ The Haas Brothers’ “Gorillas in the Mist” public art, which was commissioned for the mall. A splash fountain of three large-scale bronze gorillas, four bronze trees and five hand-carved marble benches provides an oasis outdoors.

▪ The late artist Louise Bourgeois, who was honored with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York at age 70 in 1982, is on exhibit at Aventura through her surrealistic Eye Benches installation. The orbs appear to follow viewers.

▪ Wendell Castle’s bronze sculpture, “Veiled in a Dream,” Austin Lee’s whimsical “Joy” pop art sculpture, and Daniel Buren’s immersive 16 plexiglass panels, “The Colored Screens,” are among the many art installations on display at Aventura.

▪ New World School of the Arts visual arts students Cindy Becerra, Rachel Lee, Jon Millan, Elizabeth Newberry and Melanie Sarria collaborated with ceramicists Carlos Alves and JC Carroll to install hand-made mosaic tiles featuring tropical Florida imagery for their “Hello Sunshine” stairwell project.

▪ Robert Indiana’s familiar “Love” sculpture was initially conceived as an image on a card in 1964. The idea to turn the red, blue and green lettering and tilted O quickly followed and became a quintessential 1960s pop art image. “Love” is on display adjacent to Aventura Mall’s Tap 42 Craft Kitchen + Bar.

“People are coming to your shopping center. You’re really the town center. You should give them the experience of art — whether they appreciate it or not or they know it or not. If you give them the experience, you know you’re adding value to people’s lives and you’re adding value to the community,” Soffer said.

Tenant mix

How successful is Aventura Mall with all of this? All we can judge is by the crowds. Turnberry declined to provide data such as occupancy rate or sales per square foot. But a stroll around the lively complex in the fall, months before holiday shopping season, revealed few, if any, dead spots. Aventura Mall isn’t acting like a passe ‘80s rock group on the oldies circuit.

Product mix, providing potential customers an experience — something to do, see and feel as opposed to just a place to shop — and anticipating trends are key components of Aventura’s enduring appeal.

“Jackie Soffer’s strategic approach to Aventura Mall’s management has been pivotal in its success,” said Steven Henenfeld, executive vice president of retail services with Colliers International Miami.

“By immersing herself in the market and maintaining a keen understanding of consumer trends, she has curated an exceptional tenant mix that appeals to both local and international visitors. The mall’s strategic location in the heart of Aventura, combined with a carefully selected blend of local and national restaurants, boutique shops and anchor stores, has positioned it as the preferred shopping destination for surrounding high-end markets including Aventura, Hallandale, Golden Beach and Sunny Isles,” Henenfeld said.

Soffer allows that there is competition for tenants among South Florida’s successful malls.

“We will compete with other shopping centers for tenants,” she said. “We have the first Skim store in the market. So we compete that way.”

Aventura Mall welcomed Canadian fashion retailer Aritzia in April 2022. The chain, which was founded in Vancouver in 1984, saw its appeal among teens soar during the pandemic when celebs like Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber and Jennifer Lopez started Instagramming themselves in Aritzia outfits.

Since joining with Aventura, Aritzia opened a store in Boca Raton’s Town Center Mall on June 6, and on Dec. 14 opened a boutique at Dadeland Mall in Kendall.

“People want to have a variety,” Soffer said. “We’re fortunate South Florida offers a variety of experiences for people who live here. I think it’s one of the reasons why people like to live in South Florida.”

In Soffer’s mind, Aventura can coexist with other malls.

“The vision is to cater to the customer in this community, which is a sophisticated, fashionable, traveled consumer who looks for quality and looks for interesting product,” she said. “That being said, I don’t want us to be a pure luxury center. I want us to be a family center.”

So, there’s the slide tower. Art installations. Mall fitness walking programs in partnership with Aventura Hospital. Aritzia and Apple. Gucci and GameStop. Macy’s and Mayors. Yalla Motek and Chipotle.

The retail experts agree with the point that there is room for competitors. Each, however, suggest a different obvious competitor.

“There really is no comparison. Aventura Mall is viewed as the premier option for the majority of retailers considering the market,” Diaz said. “If I had to name one, Dadeland Mall would be its closest competitor. Both malls recently completed renovations and have some of the same tenants, although Aventura skews a bit more towards the affluent shopper. Bal Harbour is focused on more luxury brands and does a phenomenal job at executing their strategy, but Aventura appeals more to the general public.”

Said Henenfeld: “While many might consider Dadeland Mall as the top competitor due to its size and anchor stores, the reality is more nuanced. While each mall targets a different customer base, their tenant rosters naturally overlap as retailers aim to establish a strong footprint across Miami-Dade County. The more direct competitor is arguably Bal Harbour Shops, which shares similar geographic positioning and targets the same high-end demographic.”

How the Aventura Mall started

KNOW MORE: What did Aventura Mall look like when it opened four decades ago? See pictures

Aventura Mall opened in April 1983, with four planned department store anchors. On opening day, Lord & Taylor was the sole anchor ready for customers. JCPenney joined a month later in April, followed by Sears’ opening in July and Macy’s in October.

Of the four, JCPenney and Macy’s remain. JCPenney emerged from bankruptcy in 2021, but its third quarter 2024 net sales and total revenue declined. Macy’s accelerated its store closings nationwide up to 65 in 2024 and plans to shutter 150 more stores by 2026.

Aventura’s Sears was demolished in 2017 and its 12.3 acre plot was converted to the Esplanade, a 215,000-square-foot shopping complex that is owned and managed separately from the Aventura Mall. Though Esplanade, run by parent company Seritage Growth Properties, is surrounded by the same perimeter road just east of Biscayne Boulevard, the neighboring malls are so separate that they don’t allow shoppers to enter one complex from the other.

KNOW MORE: This Aventura shopping complex is expanding with new stores and cafes. Here’s the list

Dying malls

Aventura Mall is a survivor. Since the mall’s opening in 1983, South Miami’s Bakery Centre came and went in under a decade. That mall’s replacement Sunset Place will be demolished and replaced by towers filled with condos, a hotel, offices, a theater and restaurants.

Sarasota Square Mall, opened in 1977, appears headed to the same redevelopment fate.

Hollywood Fashion Mall closed in 1993, after just 22 years.

In 1994, the unrelated Hollywood Mall also closed.

Omni International Mall in downtown Miami opened amid fanfare in the summer of 1977 but closed by the millennium.

New owners plan a $150 million makeover of The Mall at 163rd Street near North Miami Beach, a few miles north from Aventura. The redevelopment of the 68-year-old 163rd Street mall that began as an open-air shopping center, would turn that moribund mall that was initially a chief competitor to Aventura Mall into apartments, amusement areas and new shops.

READ MORE: What was Mall at 163rd Street like at the start? Let’s take a look

Industry watcher Capital One Shopping reports that an average of 1,170 shopping malls closed across the U.S. between 2017 and 2022.

Among them, DeSoto Square Mall in Bradenton that closed in 2021 after serving the community since 1973. The culprits? Big box stores like Walmart and Target, the Great Recession and online shopping.

About 1,150 malls remain in the U.S., and if the trend holds, up to 87% of those could close within 10 years.

Sound far-fetched? Who could imagine Sears and Kmart, American landmark retailers, later owned by the same company, disappearing from the continental U.S. retail map?

Defying the odds

“I would say that we buck the trend,” Soffer, Aventura Mall’s mastermind, said. “I personally think that the brick and mortar retail problems have been over-exaggerated. ... We always had the catalog business. We’ve always had big box stores that compete with shopping.

“But ... a shopping center like ours is an experience, right?”