From Miami to Music City: Bal Harbour Pops Up in Nashville

Nashvillians will soon be able to visit Miami Beach’s famed Bal Harbour Shops without ever packing a suitcase or booking a flight. 

The fabled outdoor mall will bring its multifaceted pop-up to Wedgewood-Houston Sept. 12–Nov. 9. A tropical setting featuring palm trees, koi ponds, fountains and vibrant greenery will be home to luxury retail shops, as well as a signature restaurant, The Whitman. 

“Our ambition is to engage with the new customer, offering them the best of what we can offer in Bal Harbour, but in the condensed version,” says Bertrand Auclaire, vice president of Omnichannel Retail & Consumers. “And indeed, we don’t want to create this relationship only for the eight weeks we’ll be in the market, but it’s a real long-term relationship we want to build.” Personal shoppers will be onsite to meet and engage with customers and will be available to assist long after November.  

The Fashion Tour

Nashville is the eighth city the pop-up has visited. “We decided not to go, I would say, the easy way — which would have just been to rent a space and put some merchandise in it,” says Bertrand. Instead, they really wanted to “bring the taste of Bal Harbor Shops to these new locations.” 

The 17,000-square-foot pop-up at 500 Hagan St. — crafted from 30 custom shipping containers by architecture and design firm LOT-EK — will include covered walkways, a retractable canopy, and fans for Nashville’s still-warm-in-September weather. 

There will be approximately 40 special events throughout the two-month period, says Bertrand. But there are three you should look out for: one marking the opening, another midway, and another at the close of the eight weeks. Highlights might include live music, on-site sketch artists, wine tastings, and even workout classes. The pop-up is slated to be open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 7 or 8 p.m. 

Dining with Style

The signature dining experience — The Whitman — is named after Stanley Whitman, who founded the Bal Harbour Shops in 1965. The pop-up restaurant seats 150. It will be open for lunch and dinner weekdays, for brunch on weekends, and one day a week for afternoon tea. 

Menu offerings include an heirloom tomato and burrata salad, honey and lime Brussels sprouts, and a baby gem Caesar. Featured entrées include 1855 beef short rib — chili-glazed with crispy garlic — a  smash cheeseburger, and fried whole snapper. 

For the finale, the Whitman team has created a decadent sticky toffee pudding, Dubai chocolate tart, and cheesecake — Key lime, of course. Reservations can be made by phone or online through OpenTable.

Shopping for a Cause

Through involving themselves with communities they visit and working with local partners, pop-up organizers contribute a portion of their proceeds to nonprofits important to that city. In West Palm Beach, it was Hope for Depression Research Foundation; in Greenville, S.C., it was hurricane recovery; in Charleston, S.C., it was food banks; and in Asheville, N.C., it was hurricane recovery and Habitat for Humanity. As of this writing, a Nashville charity has not yet been selected. 

Although the pop-up doesn’t typically visit a city more than once, it might come back for a “micro pop-up trunk show” that lasts a day or two. “That’s our mission that we want to continue to reinforce,” says Bertrand. “We are not coming only for two months and then we close. We [want to] continue the relationship, even if we won’t come back with the entire pop-up.”