Consider the retail world shifted. After eight years of planning, which included major changes in the marketplace along the way, Taubman Centers this morning opens The Mall at University Town Center to the masses, and with it introduces dozens of restaurants and retailers new to the Southwest Florida market.

During a special media tour of the $315-million mall Wednesday evening, Taubman Centers CEO Robert Taubman boasted about the number of completely fresh concepts in the retail world, from a Tesla electric sportscar showroom to J.S. Trunk and Co., a new luggage store concept from Samsonite. "We are proud of the fact more than half of the retailers and restaurants are unique to this market," he said.

More than 100 stores will open today, including the region's first Apple store and Cheesecake Factory, and within months, other new names for the region will arrive as well. A two-story space in the mall has already been reserved for a massive H&M, and just Wednesday the mall announced a Microsoft store was on the way. By year's end, 115 stores will do business at UTC.

A mall-wide gala allowed many Southwest Florida residents to get a sneak peak at the mall's insides. The Wednesday evening event drew political faces like U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, County Commissioner Joe Barbetta, Sarasota City Commissioner Suzanne Atwell and Bradenton Mayor Wayne Poston. But the opening of the mall is not just a regional event, as proven by other guests in town for the ribbon-cutting.

"This is an important day for Saks," said Marigay McKee, president of Saks Fifth Avenue. "The is the first time in 10 years we are opening a new store."

Similarly, representatives of the Dillards family and Dillards Vice President Chief Financial Officer Robin Sanderford also greeted press; the 180,000-square-foot Dillards, an enormous anchor that could dwarf nearly any store in the mall with just one of its two floors, has become the only Dillards in this market.

Macy's District Vice President Teresa Burgess also said she was thrilled to be part of the grand opening, and Cache announced that its CEO, Jay Margolis, would be at the new location today as well.

That's exciting, since Taubman said the mall would have been here sooner if not for the Great Recession creating retail skittishness. The mall plans were shelved temporarilly in 2008, after national chains expressed reluctance about opening new stores and anchors like Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom backed away from the project. Taubman said that never affected the mall company's view of UTC's potential. "We knew Sarasota would support this effort," he said. "The delay was not because we didn't have faith in the market. Our retailers were in a state of fear at the time."

The tour of the mall showcased numerous features new to American malls, including touchscreen interactive directories that will outline directions from your current location to whatever store-or bathroom facility-you ask to find. A dozen electric vehicle parking spaces can be found outside, and nearly every light at the facility is LED.

Jeff Boes, Taubman director of Planning and Design, said the mall actually has room for another anchor, though none has been announced. The mall packs a lot into a condensed space, with a guest standing at the center of the mall able to see to the Macy's and Dillards on opposite ends of the mall. But the most visually striking aspect inside remains the natural lighting, let in through skylights running the length of the mall but regulated by vertical shutters that ensure the light doesn't bring with it unbearable heat. Boes said the modern architectural traditions of Sarasota informed the design.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony takes place today at 9:30am at the main mall entrance, a half hour after the public is allowed inside the mall. 

What looks like over a hundred people gather outside and around New College’s Mildred Sainer Pavilion to celebrate the kickoff of this year’s Ringling International Art Festival. It’s an idyllic setting: the grass is green, the sky is blue with just a smattering of puffy white clouds keeping a respectable distance and providing intermittent shade. But the temperature is fine and the crowd is dressed to the nines, enjoying hors d'oeurves and sipping champagne.

I am woefully underdressed.

The same scene, minus my raggedy jeans and untucked shirt, plays out at two other locations across the Ringling grounds, as the community gathers for the premiere performances. At the Historic Asolo Theater, people are waiting to see the classical dance/circus fusion from Tangram, at Cook Theatre to see The Pedrito Martinez Group, a jazz-funk band steeped in Afro-Cuban Rumba. I lounge and try to look unaware of my fashion faux pas until we’re ushered in to see Duo Amal, the Israeli/Palestinian pianist duo performing across the globe in the name of tolerance and understanding.

They open with a piece from Schubert, with the pair, Bishara Haroni and Yaron Kohlberg, seated at a single piano with their benches turned sideways, playing in harmony. Moving to separate pianos, they unleash the rest of their show, at one moment playful the next somber, culminating in a riveting Rachmaninoff so intense the performers nearly leap from their seats.

It’s a masterful performance, equal parts precision and heart. It’s world-class right here in Sarasota.

The music ends, the applause roars and we head out into the night.

Reconvene in the Ringling Courtyard for a post-performance celebration and Bolero Sarasota. It’s packed. The party is already in motion and the drinks are flowing. At the buffet lays a whole roasted pig. The word ‘buffet’ suddenly seems terribly inadequate.

In the front hall, a great crowd of besequined and colorfully adorned performers gather. Top hats and leotards. Flowing gowns and headdresses. Choreographer Larry Keigwin’s Bolero Sarasota is ready to begin.

This will not be Keigwin’s first boler, a Spanish dance typified by triple time and feet-stamping rhythms, punctuated by dramatic poses and pauses. Keigwin has been choreographing and organizing boleros in communities across the country since 2007, including in New York, Chicago and Santa Barbara.

The courtyard walkways are cleared as troupes of dancers glide into the space from all sides. The drums echo off the walls, where stone guardians look on in direct contrast to the swirling motions below. Unicycles and hula hoops loop through the performers as they ebb and flow, bursting forth in a torrent of dance before receding into the wings, as synchronous as the tide.

The lights flare and the dance ends, the performers frozen in time as the fireworks erupt over their heads. Our artificial borealis illuminates the scene as the speakers pipe in what sounds like a remix of Walk This Way.

The fireworks ends but the party continues. I leave tired but satisfied, exhilarated and drained. I have an article to write and a late night ahead of me, but I’m looking forward to Day 2. 

RIAF runs until Sunday, Oct. 19. Upcoming performances thus far unmentioned include the dance troupe Keigwin + Company, the humorous puppetry of The Table, the jazz group Vijay Ayer Trio and the sci-fi live-action graphic novel The Intergalactic Nemesis.

The Center for Architecture Sarasota welcomes highly acclaimed Thomas Balsley tonight for a lecture on his practice of landscape architectural design in the public realm. Balsley plans to explore the transformative powers of landscape urbanism, presenting commissions ranging from large-scale urban development plans in Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai to new downtown parks in Baltimore, Los Angeles and Tampa’s own Curtis Hixon Park.

You’ve completed over 100 notable parks and plazas across the globe. What insight can Sarasota participants expect to gain attending your lecture tonight? I’m looking forward to sharing the work I’ve done over the years, hopefully striking a cord with people in respect to their artistic sensibilities and the connections my work has back to building communities and revitalizing cities. I’m showing a couple snippets of residences that I’ve done, then going more into an urban-centric focus. What are the biggest urban landscaping challenges you see in a city like Sarasota? Every city, if it’s healthy, has a center. I think Sarasota is missing that. Tampa was missing that until we cleared a couple buildings out of their waterfront and gave them a new “here.” Every city should have a place of “here”—that place where you meet, where you have festivals, where you celebrate, where you show off to the visitors. Every city needs that and I think it’s safe to say Sarasota needs that. You say parks are among society’s “truest forms of democracy.” What makes the practice of landscape urbanism within parks successful? From my point of view, I haven’t succeeded unless the public has given it a nice, tight, warm embrace. We’ve all seen nice designs get installed and nobody cares about them 5 years later and they get torn down 10 years later. I take a lot of pride in the fact that ours are coming out of a dialogue of a public process and that’s what I think is one of the keys to their success.   

Tomas Balsley Associates

Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast announced the hiring of Andria Piekarz in the new role of director of philanthropy. Piekarz serves as the chief team strategist for fund development charged with the planning and implementation of a comprehensive development plan to support the mission of Conservation Foundation. An experienced marketing and development executive with a strong track record of growing revenues for global, entrepreneurial organizations, Piekarz has worked in the nonprofit sector in the local region for the past five years, most recently as vice president of philanthropy for Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Sun Coast.  

Conservation Foundation

Three attorneys from Nelson Hesse are joining forces with Kirk-Pinkerton, significantly broadening the areas of expertise at one of Sarasota’s oldest law firms. The addition of attorneys F. Steven Herb, Gary W. Peal and Robert K. Robinson will augment Kirk-Pinkerton’s roster, officials said, and make the firm "an industry leader in real estate law, corporate law, tax law, estate planning, land-use decisions and business law, personal injury law, commercial litigation, and criminal law as well as government relations, public records law and labor and employment law." 

Kirk-Pinkeron, PA

E. John Wagner, II, a Williams Parker shareholder, recently co-authored an article in the Florida Tax Review that proposes changes to the Internal Revenue Code to enable real estate developers to use simpler legal structures to avoid negative income tax consequences for certain real estate developments. The article is entitled "A Case For Simpler Gain Bifurcation For Real Estate Developers” and appears in the most recent edition of the scholarly journal. Wagner is a board certified tax attorney and chairs the firm’s corporate and tax practices. 

Williams Parker

Event photos from this past Saturday's LECOM Annual Dinner and Auction Gala are now featured on the magazine's online gallery, CLICKSRQ.COM. Event sponsored by the SRQ Gives Back Partnership Division of SRQ Magazine. 

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