South America's Largest Luxe Mall Lands In Sao Paulo

South America's Largest Luxe Mall Lands in Sao Paulo

SAO PAULO, Brazil

-- The most blatant sign of Brazil's booming luxury market is The Shopping Cidade Jardim, or SCJ, the largest multibrand luxury center in South America, which opened May 30.

The SCJ is a $150 million, 387,500-square-foot emporium around which an $830 million luxury complex, the Parque Cidade Jardim, is being built. The complex will include nine residential buildings (2.29 million square feet) and four commercial towers (2.03 million square feet) when completed in 2010 in Sao Paulo, South America's largest city.

Modeled after Miami's upscale Bal Harbour Shops mall, SCJ's 180 shops encircle a long, open, central garden. Its orchid-festooned, native trees soar 60 feet to its third floor, atop which sits a 21,000-square-foot garden, with breathtaking cityscapes. The mall opened with 120 shops occupying 322,000 square feet. They represent a mix of high-end local and foreign labels. Another 60 stores start operating in 2009.

"Sex and the City" actress Sarah Jessica Parker stars in SCJ's splashy ad campaign, sporting some of the luxury center's foreign labels. Those brands include Chanel, Giorgio Armani, Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton, Zegna, Lacoste, Zara, Fogal, Hermes, La Perla, Furla, Longchamp and French luxe children's brand Bonpoint, the last five being newcomers to the Brazilian market. Tiffany, Rolex and Montblanc also have units there, and Hugo Boss plans to open a store there next year. Among the top Brazilian brands are Carlos Miele, Iodice, Reinaldo Lourenco and Osklen.

SCJ's closest competitor -- the ultrachic Daslu fashion emporium, situated in a 200,000-square-foot, Florentine-style villa in Sao Paulo -- runs the Chanel store at SCJ and has an anchor there as well. The Daslu shop features its own label and foreign brands like Jimmy Choo, Sergio Rossi, Valentino, Pucci, Balenciaga and Blumarine, with accessories accounting for 50 percent of its foreign-brand stock.

SCJ's other big multibrand store is Fashion Factory, with foreign casual brands like True Religion, Rock & Republic, See by Chloe, Z Brand, Custo Barcelona and Theory. Footwear retailer Centauro offers Nike, Puma, Adidas, Reebok and Asics.

SCJ also features bookstores, seven Cinemark movie theaters, a Reebok Sports Club athletic center-gym, the most complete spa in Latin America and a mix of midmarket to upscale restaurants. There is no...