Luxury ‘pop-up’ shops event to come to Sarasota

Bal Harbour Pop-Up shops heading for Sarasota feature temporary modular buildings. Photo via Bal Harbour Shops.

A retail shopping event featuring pop-up luxury businesses is heading for Sarasota.

The Bal Harbour Shops Pop-Up Tour is about to bring about a dozen luxury retailers to the event featuring temporary structures for March 8 and the following week at the University Town Center Mall in Sarasota.

While the event is taking place on the grounds of the mall, the retailers will be under tent canopies outside the permanent covered structures. That’s the point of the “pop-up” element of the event and mirrors the pattern of retailing under the tents, which many entrepreneurs and small businesses prefer.

The difference with the Bal Harbour Shops event is that the Pop-Up tour features luxury retailers that may not have a brick-and-mortar store in the markets the tour visits. The retailers to participate in the Sarasota event include brands such as Tiffany & Co., Balmain, Etro, Gianvito Rossi, Addict, Santa Maria Novella and others. The tour has already visited other cities including Raleigh, North Carolina.

The “pop-up” shopping area is more than just tents and is more temporary modular buildings that serve as a complement to the permanent mall structures.

The Bal Harbour Shops concept was first developed in 1965 by retailer Stanley Whitman, whose family owned the shops and merchandise that feature nautical and tropical themes.

“We’re thrilled to bring the tropical luxury shopping and dining experience of Bal Harbour to Sarasota for the first time in our history,” said Matthew Whitman Lazenby, president and CEO of Whitman Family Development.

“With this roving pop-up, we introduce a new and innovative solution at the crossroads of high-touch personal service and high-tech logistics, delivering on our mission to impress our guests with our distinctive level of excellence.”

The pop-up shops event in Sarasota will cover about 17,000 square feet of retail area outside the mall. There are retractable canopies covering the pop-up shopping areas where walkways will also feature fans to cool shoppers. An outdoor pop-up restaurant will also feature dining for up to 150 customers.