Matchmakers

Chapter 8

Interior Design

Building Platforms to Maximize Activity and Value

The upscale Aventura Mall is a few blocks from the beach in a suburb north of Miami. People from the surrounding area and visitors from around the world love it. It has even been described as “shopping heaven.”¹ It has more than 300 stores, including six anchors, spread out over 2.7 million square feet on three levels.²

This chic collection of stores, the largest mall in Florida and the third largest in the United States, opened its doors in April 1983. A quarter century before, Harry Soffer, a mall developer from Pennsylvania, and several other investors bought more than 785 acres of land in South Florida. Soffer put his son, Donald, a Brandeis-educated football ...