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The origins of Bal Harbour chic

South Florida has become a mecca for shopping and high fashion, breaking sales forecasts and records throughout the region’s retail spaces. Millions of square feet of retail are either under construction or in the planning stages with new malls being developed while long-standing malls throughout South Florida are expanding.

The mixed use Brickell City Centre, Miami Worldcenter and All Aboard Florida are already underway; and developers are now proposing to build the largest mall in the nation, aptly named American Dream Miami, in northwest Miami-Dade. 

Pictured here, Bal Harbour Shops during its construction in 1965. Breaking the retail mold at the time, where a mix of essential service tenants such as grocery and hardware stores were usually planned with retail spaces, owner/developer Stanley Whitman opened Florida’s first exclusive, high-fashion shopping center. The site, which had previously been a World War II army barracks, was to become the most lucrative shopping mall in the world based on sales-per-square-foot.

Featuring artifacts that showcase the family’s innovation and contribution to South Florida throughout the years, The Whitman Family Gallery will open at HistoryMiami in April 2015. ?  

Information for this feature is courtesy of the HistoryMiami Archives & Research Center, which is open to the public and contains more than 1.1 million images of southeast Florida, the entire state, and the Caribbean from 1883 to the present. For more information or to visit HistoryMiami, please visit www.historymiami.org. (This photo ran in the Miami News on Oct. 13, 1965. Miami News Collection, HistoryMiami, catalog number 1989-011-1181.)

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Drew Limsky

Drew Limsky

Editor-in-Chief

BIOGRAPHY

Drew Limsky joined Lifestyle Media Group in August 2020 as Editor-in-Chief of South Florida Business & Wealth. His first issue of SFBW, October 2020, heralded a reimagined structure, with new content categories and a slew of fresh visual themes. “As sort of a cross between Forbes and Robb Report, with a dash of GQ and Vogue,” Limsky says, “SFBW reflects South Florida’s increasingly sophisticated and dynamic business and cultural landscape.”

Limsky, an avid traveler, swimmer and film buff who holds a law degree and Ph.D. from New York University, likes to say, “I’m a doctor, but I can’t operate—except on your brand.” He wrote his dissertation on the nonfiction work of Joan Didion. Prior to that, Limsky received his B.A. in English, summa cum laude, from Emory University and earned his M.A. in literature at American University in connection with a Masters Scholar Award fellowship.

Limsky came to SFBW at the apex of a storied career in journalism and publishing that includes six previous lead editorial roles, including for some of the world’s best-known brands. He served as global editor-in-chief of Lexus magazine, founding editor-in-chief of custom lifestyle magazines for Cadillac and Holland America Line, and was the founding editor-in-chief of Modern Luxury Interiors South Florida. He also was the executive editor for B2B magazines for Acura and Honda Financial Services, and he served as travel editor for Conde Nast. Magazines under Limsky’s editorship have garnered more than 75 industry awards.

He has also written for many of the country’s top newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, USA Today, Worth, Robb Report, Afar, Time Out New York, National Geographic Traveler, Men’s Journal, Ritz-Carlton, Elite Traveler, Florida Design, Metropolis and Architectural Digest Mexico. His other clients have included Four Seasons, Acqualina Resort & Residences, Yahoo!, American Airlines, Wynn, Douglas Elliman and Corcoran. As an adjunct assistant professor, Limsky has taught journalism, film and creative writing at the City University of New York, Pace University, American University and other colleges.