Craig Robins
Craig Robins
Founder, CEO and President at Dacra
Many developers boast about single-handedly rehabilitating a neighborhood or even an entire city, but few deserve such a distinction. Craig Robins is among that number.
Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Robins’ Dacra bought out blocks of Miami’s Design District, which housed derelict furniture showrooms in the heart of the city.
Two decades later, thanks to the developer’s extensive renovations and redevelopment of 18 square blocks, the Design District is now the ultimate shopping destination in Miami, where world-renowned fashion brands splash out. They install oversized sculptures, like Louis Vuitton, or spend tens of millions of dollars to build out a store in hopes of standing out from the competition, as Chanel did last year.
The numbers speak for themselves. The District, despite being closed for a third of 2020 because of COVID-19, held on to its sales, posting figures similar to 2019, Robins told Commercial Observer. The next year sales grew by 125 percent and the development, which spans 1 million square feet, is now fully leased.
Beyond shopping, the District played a critical role in rebranding Miami from a hedonist’s mecca into a cultural capital, renowned for its modern art scene. “Miami was this fun-in-the-sun party place where people came to go to nightclubs all night. I loved it — but I also hated it,” Robins said. “I wanted it to be known as a cultural substance.”
Back in the early aughts, the developer lobbied for Art Basel, a modern art fair based in Switzerland, to host a fair in Miami, which today has become the toast of the contemporary art world. So has the Design District’s own exposition, Design Miami, which showcases collectible items.
Without cultural offerings to rival those of New York, who knows whether billionaires (and their businesses) would have leaped to Miami, bestowing the city a new accolade, the “Wall Street and Silicon Valley of the South”?
The District is an impressive architectural spectacle unto itself with art installations that grace the outdoor pavilions and buildings that are outfitted with shimmering, curved slabs.
The neighborhood-like development is now expanding into new territory. Dacra is in the early stages of developing a standalone office building, 100-room hotel and residential property — as well as looking for ways to accommodate existing tenants who want to expand. “It’s a little stressful, but it’s a good problem,” Robins said.
