Miller Timing

The 250,000-square-foot operation, which will sell high-end designer furnishings, lighting fixtures, bathroom wares and kitchen appliances, will cater to retail shoppers and trade customers. When completed next year, the center is expected to draw from a pool of more than five million residents between Southwest Florida and the areas north toward Tampa and Orlando.

It's the latest venture by Margaret Miller and her company, Miromar Development. For the better part of a decade, she has deftly pieced together the successful Miromar Outlets and created the upscale residential haven Miromar Lakes. Can she achieve the same measure of prosperity with the design center?

"You can't underestimate Margaret Miller," says Frank D'Alessandro, of D'Alessandro & Woodyard, a Fort Myers commercial real estate brokerage firm. "She really does her homework. She's right on the money."

Miller has been on a roll since she began buying property in 1994 near the TECO Arena. Until then, the Naples area had served as a vacation spot away from her home in Canada. "I loved it here. It was a nice quiet place," Miller recalls. "I just had to find a property here to build an outlet mall." On her newly acquired 38-acre site at Corkscrew road and I-75, Miller would seek to repeat the success her company had with retail and commercial centers in Canada and upstate New York.

Rather than construct a massive complex all at once, she planned the outlet in seven phases, with the goal of building 680,000 square feet by 2007 all at the northeast corner of Corkscrew and I-75. Currently there are 370,000 square feet. She's starting on the fourth, 90,000-square-foot outlet (not associated with the International Design Center). The strategy is to make sure the market will support her retail center before she sinks money into additional space. "It's a more prudent way," says Miller of building in phases. "It has been extremely effective for us."

She's not alone in her strategy. Many developers are reconsidering the massive malls made popular by anchoring several smaller stores with major retailers.

"It's definitely the trend now. Companies are not going with enclosed malls," says Mike Gatti, vice president of marketing for the National Retail Federation in Washington D.C.

D'Alessandro says the tendency toward scaled-back shopping centers is driven by the failure of the mega-mall arrangement. "The reason is that the department stores are having financial difficulties," he says of some anchor stores, such as Kmart. Instead, a collection of brand-name stores, like those Miller has attracted, become "one big anchor" and sustain the entire operation, D'Alessandro says.

The 100 or so shops now open at Miromar Outlets include: Donna Karan / DKNY, Brooks Brothers Factory Store, Perry Ellis, Polo Ralph Lauren, Nike Factory Store and Tommy Hilfiger. When the project is built out, Miller wants to have 90 additional retailers.

Miller has sought to distinguish the Estero center to enhance the shopping experience for customers, she says. The stores are situated amid a Tuscan village motif with piazzas, fountains, lush plants, pavers and stucco. The wide walkways are in the open air, but there is ample covering in case of bad weather. There are restaurants and entertainment, such as dancing water, light and music shows. And when the stores draw a critical mass of customers, she'll add new buildings and features.

"I'm in no rush to have to go and complete more buildings," she says. "We own the land.

Miromar Lakes Beach & Golf Club, just north of the outlets, is another of Miller's developments that appeal to comfortable lifestyles, she says. The 1,800 acres of residential property surround 700 acres of freshwater lakes and a golf course. There's a beach club and white sand that line two miles of shore.

And now, Miller will introduce her International Design Center to the region. The upscale merchandise will be sold from a neoclassical, three-story building with separate shopping areas for retail customers and those in the design and building profession.

Eventually, the center (which she says will be "luxurious") will grow to 400,000 square feet, and the parcel will include an office park and mid-priced hotel.

"By building in phases, you keep things much more exciting," she says. "There's always something to look forward to. It keeps people coming back."

Pass the Attitude

Collier County officials might want to bottle businessman Holger Baron's attitude and give it to other executives and entrepreneurs considering Southwest Florida as a potential company site.

When it came time for Baron to relocate the headquarters of his kitchen-and-bathroom-fixture business, Herbeau Creations of America, he stayed in Naples. He didn't look at Lee County for cheaper land. Nor did he complain about impact fees or other development costs. Instead, he's putting up a 20,000-square-foot building located at 3600 Westview Drive, and keeping his well-paying jobs, in town.

Herbeau Creations of America is a distributor for French company Herbeau Europe, a manufacturer of handcrafted kitchen and bathroom fixtures, founded in 1992.

"It is the kind of company that could've gone elsewhere," said Tammie Nemecek, executive director of Collier County's Economic Development Council.

Unfortunately, other businesses do. They balk at high impact fees and a cost of living to match, which makes it tough to find qualified workers. Some gripe about the amount of time -- easily a year -- to get the simplest of plans through Collier County's process.

There have been exceptions. For example, F.N.B Corp. will build its corporate technology support at Immokalee Road and I-75. And Arthrex, a leading Naples-based biotechnology company, is building a new corporate campus in North Naples.

. When Herbeau Creations of America moved to its current offices at 2795 Davis Boulevard in 1997, the company had four employees; now there are 18. Herbeau products are available in more than 300 specialty kitchen and bath showrooms nationwide. In 2002, Herbeau was ranked No. 449 on Inc. magazine's list of the fastest growing companies. Workers on average make $16 an hour, Baron says, compared with Collier County's average of about $14. Although he had his project fast-tracked by the EDC, he received no other assistance. The new building will provide increased warehouse space, as well as facilities for media presentations, training and future expansion. The structure will be completed by November 2003.

For Baron, there was never a second thought about staying.

"I came first to Naples and I like it," Baron says.