Prep your palates: Italian food hall coming to Brickell City Centre

A three-story, 38,000-square-foot food hall will join Brickell City Centre when the development’s retail component opens. 

The Italian-style food hall will anchor the open-air shopping center at the $1.05 billion mixed-use project, Swire Properties and retail co-developers Whitman Family Development and Simon Property Group announced on Thursday.

Like other food halls around the country, Brickell City Centre‘s will feature a marketplace with produce, cooked meals, imported cheeses and meats; as well as live cooking demonstrations, cooking classes, and wine and food pairing courses. It will be located in the north block of the shops, according to a release.

The 500,000-square-foot retail component, originally set to open this fall, will feature 70 stores and restaurants that include the Apple store, Valentino and Chopard. And closings are now underway at the first of two condo towers at Brickell City Centre. Reach and Rise, which hit nearly $500 million in combined sales, each house 390 units with prices ranging from $595,000 to $2.7 million.

Food halls have become a presence in major markets across the country. A handful have been proposed in South Florida, including in Little Haiti, where Conway Commercial Real Estate and Urban Atlantic Group are planning a 10,000-square-foot hall called the Citadel. And All Aboard Florida is reportedly in the process of courting a number of local restaurants, according to a Miami New Times article in February.

In New York City, eight food halls have opened in the last five years, taking up a combined 140,000 square feet. – Katherine Kallergis