Costco Wholesale has signed a deal to develop a new store at Mall of the Americas, Sterling Organization announced on Monday.
The membership-only warehouse shopping club has signed a 20-year lease for 151,104 square feet at the mall at 7795 West Flagler Street, according to Sterling, a Palm Beach-based private equity real estate investment firm.
The redevelopment project will begin in mid-October, and the store is expected to open in late 2016.
Bryan Fetherston from the Shopping Center Group and Ernest Annibale from Northwest Atlantic represented Costco on the transaction.
Costco will close its existing location nearby, at 8300 Park Boulevard in Doral, Sterling said. That store, which has 146,599 square feet, was purchased by Costco in 1988 for $5.27 million, according to Miami-Dade property records. The store opened in 1989.
In all, Costco operates 22 stores in Florida, with about half in South Florida, according to its website.
To accommodate the new store, a portion of the north wing of Mall of the Americas will be demolished, Sterling said in a release. Some of the businesses in the existing north wing of the mall have been relocated to the south wing in anticipation of the redevelopment. The mall will remain open during construction.
Mall of the Americas, a nearly 800,000-square-foot partially enclosed shopping center, is currently anchored by Home Depot, Tiger Direct, Old Navy, Marshalls, and Ross Dress for Less. The mall was originally developed in 1970 as Midway Mall. Its name was changed to Mall of the Americas in 1987. — Ina Cordle