The ongoing, sometimes controversial makeover of the U.S. 1 corridor in Coral Gables from sprawling suburbia to Mediterranean-garbed urban density is about to receive a massive addition — and the source is an unexpected one.
The Collection, the ultra-luxury car dealership in the Gables, is set to build a multi-story expansion to house a stand-alone Jaguar and Land Rover shop on the site of its “pre-owned” auto lot, which has been moved elsewhere in preparation for the project.
The expansion represents a major increase in density — and, to its backers, a significant upgrade — on what has long been a long wedge of nondescript surface car lots between the elevated Metrorail line and the highway. As part of the project, the Collection will pay for and build a section of the Underline, helping complete the Coral Gables portion of the 10-mile linear park that will run below the Metro line.
The new eight-story Collection building will house fully enclosed, separate ground-floor shops for Jaguar and Land Rover, along with an air-conditioned, indoor maintenance and repair shop and several levels of auto storage above. At the city’s insistence, all of it will be clad in clean, whitewashed neo-Mediterranean architecture to blend in with its emerging new vision for the busy, congested corridor, the Collection’s owners say.
The structure will be large enough to hold 850 new cars. At 500,000 square feet, it’s the equivalent of five standard WalMart stores, though the look will be a long way from that.
An architectural rendering shows The Collection’s planned new, 534,000-square-foot Jaguar and Land Rover dealership at U.S. 1 and Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Coral Gables. The eight-story, neo-Mediterranean building would extend a dense new urban template for the corridor in the Gables. Al Diaz COURTESY OF THE COLLECTION
The building’s design was the subject of prolonged negotiations between the Collection and Jaguar and Land Rover, British brands now owned by Tata Motors of India, which favor a standard glass-and-steel look for their dealerships. Obtaining approvals from the city delayed the project a year, Collection president and CEO Ken Gorin said.
In the end, a compromise design — a collaboration between Classically inspired Gables architect Jorge Hernandez and Spring Engineering — calls for a dark stone facing framing showroom windows and stripped-down Mediterranean detailing for the rest. Those Med details include arched windows on the ground floor along U.S. 1, sharp cornices at the roof line and window openings shaded by shutters on the upper stories.
The building will have glass walls on the side facing the Underline to provide visitors a view of lush greenery. The park will also include a dog park and an oval area for live artistic performances.
“I think the building is very compatible with the city of Coral Gables,” said Collection principal Ugo Colombo, best known as a luxury condo developer. “That is what the city wanted, and rightly so. I would say the Gables got the upper hand.”
Ugo Colombo, owner of The Collection, sits in a Ferrari inside his new showroom for the Italian sports-car brand on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami. Al Diaz ADIAZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM
That Hernandez was brought in to add a Classical touch to the building is no coincidence. The architect, also a professor at the nearby University of Miami, was co-designer of the adjacent Gables Station, whose look, if not its scale and massing, the Collection building seeks to emulate.
The gargantuan Gables Station is one of two major new mixed-use projects on U.S. 1 that Gables planners hope will extend a new transit- and pedestrian-friendly urban template for the helter skelter corridor of strip malls and commercial buildings set well behind parking lots. Gables Station and the second new project just to the south, Paseo de la Riviera, are built right up to arcaded sidewalks with scant setbacks, and represent a striking increase in height and scale for the corridor. (Hernandez was also co-designer of Paseo.)
The projects, both by newly renamed development group Nolan Reynolds International (formerly NP International), have stirred a bitter reaction by some Gables residents who complain they’re outscaled stacks of concrete that overshadow their surroundings. Some residents of the single-family neighborhood behind Paseo de la Riviera sued unsuccessfully to stop construction.
Collection officials, however, note their planned dealership is less than half the height of Gables Station next door. The nearest homes are all the way across the highway, in the MacFarlane historic district in west Coconut Grove that’s part of the Gables.
“It will be beautiful,” Gorin promised.
Ken Gorin, president & CEO at The Collection, holds an architectural rendering of the dealership’s planned new stand-alone Jaguar and Land Rover shop on U.S. 1 and Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Coral Gables. Al Diaz ADIAZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM
The expansion also marks a coup for the Collection’s managers — snagging a hard-to-get Land Rover franchise. The dealer has long had a successful Jaguar shop, but landing its sister brand took 15 years of trying, Gorin and Colombo said. The process included talks with Land Rover outlets in south and north Miami-Dade to ensure their businesses would not be hurt by the addition of a third dealer. Tata insists on pairing the brands in stand-alone dealerships, and Land Rover was “conspicuous by their absence” at the Collection, Gorin said.
Land Rovers and SUVs in general have exploded in popularity among the affluent Gables set in recent years. The addition extends a stable of Collection brands that, in unusual fashion, puts relatively sensible Audis under the same roof with pricey Porsches and beyond-extravagant Ferrari and McLaren sports cars at the dealership’s Bird Road flagship. The seven other brands, which also include Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo and Maserati, will remain at Bird Road.
So inexhaustible is the appetite for luxury cars in Miami that the Collection has seen its annual revenues soar dramatically, rising six-fold since Colombo acquired the dealer in 1994 to a stunning $600 million, he said.
The Collection is the kind of place where, last week, a steady customer picked up a $1.7 million McLaren Senna “hypercar” — not a street-legal model, but a race car that can only be driven on a track — and then added a second McLaren to the purchase for street use, bringing the total sale to $2.5 million.
Ken Gorin, President & CEO at The Collection in Coral Gables, poses with a McLaren Senna “hypercar” priced at $1.7 million. Al Diaz ADIAZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Along with Los Angeles and New York, Miami is one of the very top markets for luxury vehicles in the country, Gorin and Colombo say, and the Collection consistently ranks among the top dealerships.
“Miami is a drivers’ city. We love cars,” Gorin said. “We have such beautiful places to drive.”
In a now-standard quip, he adds: “We don’t have cars anyone needs. People want them.”
The Collection’s popularity may also have something to do with Colombo’s legendary obsessiveness over architectural detail and his willingness to spend lavishly to get precisely the luxurious look and feel he wants. He developed the office and retail building where the dealership is housed in 2002 — it occupies a full city block and includes an office tower — and he claims credit for pioneering the everything-under-one-roof model, including the self-contained and climate-controlled repair shop, that’s now common across South Florida.
For the dealership interior, Colombo hired noted Italian designer Massimo Iosa Ghini, though he was closely involved down to helping select the tiles for the showroom’s intricate mosaic floors. Colombo was so proud of the results that he had an architectural monograph on the dealership published.
The lounge at The Collection’s opulent flagship dealership in Coral Gables displays an intricate mosaic tile flooring. Al Diaz ADIAZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM
“I have to say, that building is still efficient and has everything we need,” Colombo said.
He brought the same intensity to a new stand-alone, museum-like Ferrari dealer he opened last year in the unlikely environs of Biscayne Boulevard, across from the old Omni Mall. The Ferrari shop is on the ground floor of a Mid-Century Modern former bank building he painstakingly renovated for the headquarters of his development company, CMC Group.
And he pledges to bring the same level of design quality and functionality to the Collection’s expansion on U.S. 1.
Colombo and Gorin expect demolition of the old pre-owned building and lots to happen soon. They plan to break ground on the new dealership within three months. The pre-owned business is now on LeJeune Road just south of Miami International Airport.
For Colombo, who has just opened his newest condo tower, Brickell Flatiron, the car and development businesses make for a nice, profitable synergy. Wealthy condo buyers, many from abroad, need something to park in their towers’ garages, after all.
“That means more customers for my cars,” he says, only half joking. “We grew with the city.”
Now the city will grow with the Collection.
The former home of The Collection’s pre-owned dealership on U.S. 1 and Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Coral Gables will be the site of expansion consisting of a massive new stand-alone Jaguar and Land Rover dealership. AL DIAZADIAZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/coral-gables/article239295643.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/coral-gables/article239295643.htmlRead more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/coral-gables/article239295643.html#storylink=cpy https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/coral-gables/article239295643.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/coral-gables/article239295643.html
The building’s design was the subject of prolonged negotiations between the Collection and Jaguar and Land Rover, British brands now owned by Tata Motors of India, which favor a standard glass-and-steel look for their dealerships. Obtaining approvals from the city delayed the project a year, Collection president and CEO Ken Gorin said.
In the end, a compromise design — a collaboration between Classically inspired Gables architect Jorge Hernandez and Spring Engineering — calls for a dark stone facing framing showroom windows and stripped-down Mediterranean detailing for the rest. Those Med details include arched windows on the ground floor along U.S. 1, sharp cornices at the roof line and window openings shaded by shutters on the upper stories.
The building will have glass walls on the side facing the Underline to provide visitors a view of lush greenery. The park will also include a dog park and an oval area for live artistic performances.
“I think the building is very compatible with the city of Coral Gables,” said Collection principal Ugo Colombo, best known as a luxury condo developer. “That is what the city wanted, and rightly so. I would say the Gables got the upper hand.”
Ugo Colombo, owner of The Collection, sits in a Ferrari inside his new showroom for the Italian sports-car brand on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami. Al Diaz ADIAZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM
That Hernandez was brought in to add a Classical touch to the building is no coincidence. The architect, also a professor at the nearby University of Miami, was co-designer of the adjacent Gables Station, whose look, if not its scale and massing, the Collection building seeks to emulate.
The gargantuan Gables Station is one of two major new mixed-use projects on U.S. 1 that Gables planners hope will extend a new transit- and pedestrian-friendly urban template for the helter skelter corridor of strip malls and commercial buildings set well behind parking lots. Gables Station and the second new project just to the south, Paseo de la Riviera, are built right up to arcaded sidewalks with scant setbacks, and represent a striking increase in height and scale for the corridor. (Hernandez was also co-designer of Paseo.)
The projects, both by newly renamed development group Nolan Reynolds International (formerly NP International), have stirred a bitter reaction by some Gables residents who complain they’re outscaled stacks of concrete that overshadow their surroundings. Some residents of the single-family neighborhood behind Paseo de la Riviera sued unsuccessfully to stop construction.
Collection officials, however, note their planned dealership is less than half the height of Gables Station next door. The nearest homes are all the way across the highway, in the MacFarlane historic district in west Coconut Grove that’s part of the Gables.
“It will be beautiful,” Gorin promised.
Ken Gorin, president & CEO at The Collection, holds an architectural rendering of the dealership’s planned new stand-alone Jaguar and Land Rover shop on U.S. 1 and Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Coral Gables. Al Diaz ADIAZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM
The expansion also marks a coup for the Collection’s managers — snagging a hard-to-get Land Rover franchise. The dealer has long had a successful Jaguar shop, but landing its sister brand took 15 years of trying, Gorin and Colombo said. The process included talks with Land Rover outlets in south and north Miami-Dade to ensure their businesses would not be hurt by the addition of a third dealer. Tata insists on pairing the brands in stand-alone dealerships, and Land Rover was “conspicuous by their absence” at the Collection, Gorin said.
Land Rovers and SUVs in general have exploded in popularity among the affluent Gables set in recent years. The addition extends a stable of Collection brands that, in unusual fashion, puts relatively sensible Audis under the same roof with pricey Porsches and beyond-extravagant Ferrari and McLaren sports cars at the dealership’s Bird Road flagship. The seven other brands, which also include Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo and Maserati, will remain at Bird Road.
So inexhaustible is the appetite for luxury cars in Miami that the Collection has seen its annual revenues soar dramatically, rising six-fold since Colombo acquired the dealer in 1994 to a stunning $600 million, he said.
The Collection is the kind of place where, last week, a steady customer picked up a $1.7 million McLaren Senna “hypercar” — not a street-legal model, but a race car that can only be driven on a track — and then added a second McLaren to the purchase for street use, bringing the total sale to $2.5 million.
Ken Gorin, President & CEO at The Collection in Coral Gables, poses with a McLaren Senna “hypercar” priced at $1.7 million. Al Diaz ADIAZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Along with Los Angeles and New York, Miami is one of the very top markets for luxury vehicles in the country, Gorin and Colombo say, and the Collection consistently ranks among the top dealerships.
“Miami is a drivers’ city. We love cars,” Gorin said. “We have such beautiful places to drive.”
In a now-standard quip, he adds: “We don’t have cars anyone needs. People want them.”
The Collection’s popularity may also have something to do with Colombo’s legendary obsessiveness over architectural detail and his willingness to spend lavishly to get precisely the luxurious look and feel he wants. He developed the office and retail building where the dealership is housed in 2002 — it occupies a full city block and includes an office tower — and he claims credit for pioneering the everything-under-one-roof model, including the self-contained and climate-controlled repair shop, that’s now common across South Florida.
For the dealership interior, Colombo hired noted Italian designer Massimo Iosa Ghini, though he was closely involved down to helping select the tiles for the showroom’s intricate mosaic floors. Colombo was so proud of the results that he had an architectural monograph on the dealership published.
The lounge at The Collection’s opulent flagship dealership in Coral Gables displays an intricate mosaic tile flooring. Al Diaz ADIAZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM
“I have to say, that building is still efficient and has everything we need,” Colombo said.
He brought the same intensity to a new stand-alone, museum-like Ferrari dealer he opened last year in the unlikely environs of Biscayne Boulevard, across from the old Omni Mall. The Ferrari shop is on the ground floor of a Mid-Century Modern former bank building he painstakingly renovated for the headquarters of his development company, CMC Group.
And he pledges to bring the same level of design quality and functionality to the Collection’s expansion on U.S. 1.
Colombo and Gorin expect demolition of the old pre-owned building and lots to happen soon. They plan to break ground on the new dealership within three months. The pre-owned business is now on LeJeune Road just south of Miami International Airport.
For Colombo, who has just opened his newest condo tower, Brickell Flatiron, the car and development businesses make for a nice, profitable synergy. Wealthy condo buyers, many from abroad, need something to park in their towers’ garages, after all.
“That means more customers for my cars,” he says, only half joking. “We grew with the city.”
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