$1 Billion Redevelopment Planned for a Former Mall in Cutler Bay, Florida

The city of Cutler Bay, Florida, located 20 miles south of Miami, Florida, is attracting intense redevelopment interest, as evidenced in a recently proposed plan to spend $1 billion to transform the former location of a mall into a massive mixed-use development with housing, retail, commercial spaces, and hotel rooms.

Erika Morphy reports for Globe St. on developer Electra America’s plans to redevelop the location of the Southland Mall into an 8-acre development called Southplace City Center.

“It will feature more than 4,000 residential units, over 500,000 square feet of retail with an additional 150,000 square feet of prime retail space and outparcels for food and beverage operators. There will also be a 150-key hotel and 60,000 square feet of medical office space. The phased project will be a self-contained community with abundant green space, bike and golf cart trails, walking trails, a trolley system and access to the soon-to-open Miami-Dade SMART Plan mass transit route,” writes Morphy.

The evolving future of American mall locations (remember the pre-pandemic discussion of a “retail apocalypse”?) is an ongoing concern with multiple potential consequences—for Main Street businesses, small businesses, ground-floor retail space in urban mixed-use developments, and, of course, malls. Here is sampling of previous Planetizen coverage of the struggle of American malls and the ongoing effort to repackage and redevelopment struggling malls.

• To Meet Housing Goals, California Cities Turn to Mall Redevelopment (July 2022)
• A Second Life for the American Mall (June 2022)
• Phoenix Mall Sold for Mixed-Use Redevelopment (April 2021)
• Can Mall Redevelopment 'Urbanize the Suburbs'? (April 2021)
• The End of the Mall? Navigating the Shifting Retail Landscape (December 2021)