For a village that fits inside roughly a third of a square mile, Bal Harbour concentrates an unusual amount of its daily life onto one address. The Shops at 9700 Collins is where residents pick up dinner reservations, meet friends for espresso between errands, and cut through on the walk home from the beach. That routine is being rearranged in real time this year, and the reordering is worth paying attention to if you live here.
The thesis is simple. The 2026 expansion at Bal Harbour Shops is not just a retail story. It is quietly reshuffling the restaurants residents rely on, closing the front door most of you use, and setting the terms of the neighborhood's dining scene for the next decade. Here is what has actually changed, what is coming, and how to keep moving through it.
The restaurant lineup is not what it was last summer
Three names carry the story: China Grill, Slim's, and Makoto.
China Grill first debuted in New York in 1987 inside the CBS "Black Rock" Building and originally opened in Miami Beach on September 27, 1995. After a long absence from Miami, the restaurant reopened at the entrance of Bal Harbour Shops on June 9, back under founder Jeffrey Chodorow. The format is the same shared-plates concept regulars remember, now with hours running noon to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until midnight Friday and Saturday.
Slim's is the more interesting arrival, at least for anyone who has been ordering the same thing at Makoto for a decade. Stephen Starr will open Slim's, a sleek new steakhouse set to debut in spring 2026 at Bal Harbour Shops, taking over the original home of Makoto, which relocated to a larger space in 2022. The concept trades sushi for steak, channeling midcentury elegance with leather banquettes, vintage murals, and rich textures. If you loved the old Makoto room and never quite warmed to the new one, the bones of that space are about to come back with a completely different menu.
Makoto itself has not gone anywhere. It moved up. Makoto now sits on the 3rd floor in a space re-envisioned by Paris-based designer India Mahdavi, with bright colors, cozy banquettes, more outdoor dining, and more seats at the sushi counter. Chef Makoto Okuwa, an Edomae-style sushi specialist, kept his kitchen intact through the move.
The upshot: within twelve months, the Shops will house two Stephen Starr rooms, a returning Chodorow flagship, and a redesigned Makoto. That is a denser concentration of marquee operators than the corridor has ever held.
The front door is closed. Here is how to get in.
If you have been driving to the Shops on autopilot, retrain yourself now. Per the Shops' own posted guidance, the 9700 Collins Avenue entrance and exit closed starting 2/24/26, with self-park, valet, and rideshare rerouted through the 96th Street parking garage.
The practical routing for the rest of 2026:
- Self-park: Enter through the 96th Street parking garage or the 9800 Collins Avenue entrance.
- Valet: Enter through South Collins Gate and valet at Saks Fifth Avenue for drop-off only; pick up at the Neiman Marcus valet stand.
- Rideshare: Drop-off is on the 2nd, or Green, level of the 96th Street parking garage.
- On foot from Collins: Enter via the pedestrian walkway near the 9700 Collins block and continue toward Neiman Marcus.
None of this is permanent, but "temporary" in construction terms means most of the calendar year. Build the new pattern into your habits and dinner reservations now. If you are heading to China Grill at the entrance or Makoto on the third floor at 8 p.m. on a Saturday, valet at Saks is the shortest walk. If you are meeting someone at Café on 3 for lunch, the 96th Street garage puts you closer.
The expansion, in the numbers that matter to a resident
The scale is worth stating plainly. The retail expansion adds about 250,000 square feet, bringing the shopping center to about 700,000 square feet. Whitman Family Development has targeted an April 2026 opening for the retail expansion, with plans for hotel, office, and residential components under consideration. The next phase introduces more than 30 new stores and expansions to existing boutiques.
For residents, the tenant reshuffle is the part that changes daily habits. Eighteen existing tenants are relocating to right-size their space, including Akris, Isaia, Graff, Bottega Veneta, Zegna, Zimmermann, The Webster, David Yurman and Etro, alongside new arrivals such as L'Agence, Toteme and Peserico. If you have a standing appointment with a sales associate at any of those names, ask now where the store will physically sit after April. The map you have memorized will not match the map that opens this spring.
Roughly 40 additional stores will be added after the expansion opens. Whitman Family Development obtained a $740 million loan for the project, and Matthew Whitman Lazenby, the fourth-generation family member running the company, has framed the growth around what he describes as an unrelenting focus on luxury.
Where locals eat outside the Shops
The Shops dominate the conversation, but they are not the whole conversation. A short list of what a Bal Harbour resident actually leans on when the corridor is at capacity:
Artisan Beach House at the Ritz-Carlton. Sitting at the intersection of the Atlantic and the Intracoastal, Artisan Beach House features seasonal seafood, craft cocktails, and an airy palette of seaside color at The Ritz-Carlton Bal Harbour. Best for a low-effort lunch when the Shops feel like too much.
La Gourmandise and the bar at the St. Regis. The St. Regis Bal Harbour rises 27 stories over Collins with Forbes Five-Star and AAA Five-Diamond accolades. La Gourmandise is where residents run into each other for coffee and pastry without the reservation calculus.
Neya. A chef-driven kosher concept from Chef Ben Siman Tov, located steps from Bal Harbour Shops, with a casual-chic room and Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavors prepared by an Israeli-native executive chef. It fills a gap in the corridor that the Shops themselves do not cover.
Café on 3 at Neiman Marcus. For a quick daytime meal that does not require leaving the Shops entirely, the third-floor atrium café offers organic-leaning, customizable dishes including overnight oats, poke bowls, falafel bowls, and avocado toast on Zac the Baker bread.
What to watch for the rest of the year
A few concrete things worth tracking through the fall:
- The Slim's opening date, which the Shops have confirmed as spring 2026 but which has slipped on other Whitman timelines before. Completing the expansion took much longer than expected, with Lazenby citing political and entitlement issues in a mature community rather than financing or leasing as the primary drag.
- The mixed-use conversation. The Shops have unveiled a plan to add market-rate and affordable housing and a five-star hotel on top of the retail expansion, creating a "village center." Under Florida's live-local framework, at least 65 percent of the site footage must be residential, with 528 units planned, 300 at market rate and 228 affordable. Construction is years away, but the entitlement fights that shape it are happening now.
- Staffing. Lazenby has said the retail growth will enlarge the Shops' workforce to about 2,000 employees from 1,200. Expect more service, more foot traffic on Collins, and more pressure on the 96th Street garage even after 9700 Collins reopens.
The short version for residents: your two blocks are getting denser, better-fed, and briefly harder to enter. The payoff arrives in stages between spring 2026 and the back half of the year. Everything past that is a longer bet on what Bal Harbour looks like when the housing and hotel pieces move from rendering to permit.
If you are thinking through what these changes mean for a specific address, a rental you are weighing, or a property you have been watching along Collins, Kimberly Rodstein is available for a private market consultation or an exclusive listing preview. Bal Harbour rewards people who read the corridor closely. This year, that is worth doing on paper before you commit to anything on the ground.
