Dupont Registry is the organization behind the podcast and is also involved in the event. They’re part of the luxury car world the hosts are talking about.
They’re talking about car shows as events where people bring cars and car lovers gather. The point is that a good show needs more than just a place to park cars—it needs the right setting and activities for everyone.
They reference the “Miami Concourse” as an event they’ve done before. It’s brought up to explain the vibe they like—cars mixed with art and fashion in a standout location.
They mention the Miami Design District as a place where they’ve done a car-related event before. The idea is that the setting helps make the car show feel more like a luxury lifestyle experience.
They mention “cars and coffee,” which is a type of car meet where people gather to look at cars, usually in the morning. The hosts are saying they want to do something similar but with a more upscale, curated experience.
Company
MDD team
The MDD team is mentioned as another group helping plan the event. They’re part of the team working with duPont REGISTRY and other partners.
Ferraris are cars made by Ferrari, an Italian company famous for fast, expensive sports cars. Saying “Ferraris” tells you the event will have high-end cars.
Simon Property Group is a company that owns and manages big shopping centers. The hosts are saying they’re working with that company to make the event happen at the venue.
“Hyper-local” just means the event is designed to feel very specific to that exact location, not something generic. It’s meant to feel like it belongs there.
They mention Amazon as an example of how online shopping has hurt some traditional shopping areas. People can buy things online instead of going to stores.
It means getting the car transported to the event, usually by a professional carrier. So the owner can bring their own car to the show without driving there.
Brand
fountain blue
This refers to a well-known luxury hotel in Miami Beach. They’re pointing out that the car event is near upscale places to stay and spend time.
Dwell time is how long visitors stay at the event or venue. Here they’re saying people hang around for hours, not just minutes.
LIVE
This is Dupont Registry Talks, the exclusive podcast from the home of driving luxury since 1985.
Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of Dupont Registry Talks. I'm your host,
Charles Bradley and joining me today are another two eminent guests from our wonderful world
of luxury lifestyle and I'm delighted to say I'm joined by Brett David from Prestige Imports
and Harrison Sofa of Turnberry Associates. Welcome to the show guys. Thank you for having us.
Thank you. So today we're going to talk about an exciting new venture, a car show called Driven,
which is a new collaboration between Aventura Mal and MD-DDA car show team, which is of course
Miami Design Distress, Prestige Imports, Curated and of course Dupont Registry. Of course.
Let's just talk about how this idea first came together. Can you explain the vision behind
launching this new series of events? So it's been pretty interesting and it's a story that I think
has started many, many, many moons ago and I say that because individually my family and Harrison's
family have gone back in South Florida for probably 40 plus years. So it's really interesting that
when Harrison and I have an opportunity to now sit up here as the young guns and the new
matriarchs of our era taking over the family businesses, this has always been something
that I think was eventually going to happen, not just because of the proximity of where our main
headquarters is or where Harrison's main headquarters is, but there's always been this
incredible synergy between the families. As a young youth, my father had always taught me a word
legacy and when he had always concept the word legacy and talked about aspirations of a specific
family, he had always turned to me and utilized Harrison and Harrison's mother and his uncle
and of course his grandfather who came in to a city and didn't just make a dent,
his family had come into a city of Aventura and legitimately created Aventura and the city we
know of today and it started with passion and dreams. Many people at the time told him that he
was absolutely crazy who would do this. It was a swamp land at the time and there had been some
very, very big key elements that were brought to the city. One of those key elements became the
Aventura Mall and the Aventura Mall, being there for so many years and going through so many
different changes and redevelopments over time, Aventura Mall and I'll allow Harrison to tell you
has now become one of the most, if not the most prominent mall in America for so many different
reasons. So for us, when we think about doing these car shows and obviously we've talked in
the past about what we've done at the Miami Design District with the Miami Concourse, we saw something
that was very unique and very different for an incredible backdrop. Art meets fashion, meets
automotive, the streets being ripped with red carpet and clients from all over the world coming.
There is still a need for a redeveloped car show, cars and coffee to be done where the community
can activate in one place and what's really funny and ironic is everybody that we know, all of our
clients are constant, constant individuals that would go to the mall and they would see through
the different elements of the mall's growth and the different wings that have been redone
and the great food and beverage options that have been presented. But for a car show, what is the
biggest issue with a car show is finding a location that has enough space for us to really bring out
the automotive individuals that love and are passionate about cars but also give us enough
space where the community that are just bystanders that appreciate the love for performance and design
can come to, there is no better place that we had thought about other than Aventura Mall.
And the idea of this concept is cars and coffee or car shows have been around for many years.
But as these car shows have sort of grown, there has been a lack of luxury. There has been a lack
of a specific curation of clients from specific markets, cars being identified in certain ways
and also a lack of, I would say, entertainment and hospitality where these individuals can come to.
You know, when you think of a car show today, many people think that a car show is just putting
a car in a parking space. But when a family joins that same passion and joins the husband or the wife
and then they bring the children, we want to make sure that the ambiance and atmosphere
at the campus can serve an entire family. So when you think of what Aventura Mall as a whole has
built over the last several years and now under the directive of Harrison, you have seen something
that has grown to become an icon of its own. So by doing the show, this wasn't just about putting
cars together in a community and unveiling it. This was about really creating a nucleus of luxury,
automotive and making an afternoon out of it. And other car shows in South Florida,
they tend to each individually be lacking some sort of DNA to do exactly what we want to do.
And when Harrison and I and the MDD team spoke and we originally sat down with DuPont and we said
there is an option for us and there is a way for us to drive a great amount of traffic to the mall.
But doing it in an elevated way, I think we have the way to make this happen. And that's kind of
how the idea started. But this idea could have never, ever, ever occurred without Harrison and
his team believing in it and welcoming us to their beautiful campus. Yeah, give us your take, Harrison,
on this exciting project. Yeah, I mean, for us, Brett spoke really, really well.
He does, doesn't he? I had stuff to follow that up. But I mean, for us, we only work with partners
that are best in class and what they do. And with DuPont and MDD and Prestige, we're really excited
about what the potential of this partnership can do, not only for our property, but for the city.
And I was just with actually the mayor this morning and telling him about what we have going on.
And they're thrilled. I mean, Aventura labels itself as the city of excellence. And we truly
believe that the positioning of the property along with the caliber of event and eventually
vehicles that come to this property with this will be tremendous. So yeah, we're really excited.
Brett, tell us a little bit more. Obviously, it's going to be ultra curated, this car show. What
will make this show say this can only happen at Aventura? So it's really interesting because
when we look at the campus within Aventura Mall, it's obviously beautiful. Many of us and many
that are watching have had the opportunity to be there. I mean, when you start looking at the
statistical data of those that come from out of the state, city, and even the country, Aventura
Mall becomes one of those destination points. But something interesting about what Harrison said
is that located in the city in which the family kind of founded and started and created, it's
dubbed the city of excellence, which means that the curated roads, the beautiful backdrop scenery,
and we don't want to give up too much, but we're going to be working very, very deep with the city
to create some really iconic moments that could be seen possibly by drone shots. We could be seen
by possibly a snake or a caterpillar of Skittles vehicles driving around some of the city as we
enter in. So instead of it just being a car show, we really want it to bring in the community. And
like Harrison said, getting the support from the local municipalities and the mayor and
all of the boards to say, we really want this, we want to get away from the typical car show you
would think of and the some of the individuals and the cars that would be presented at a car show.
We want to welcome it customers in to be offered to come in, host an area within the campus where
we will have sections of Ferraris where it just won't be vehicles that let's say prestige or curated
or DuPont brings. It's going to be an opportunity for the customer themselves to become part of the
show and the customers by bringing their own cars. That seems like a typical cars and coffee.
But when you're sitting there and you're in a cars and coffee, you find yourself restricted just to
that one area. Now as you sprinkle in the element of what Aventura Mall has to offer, this isn't
going to become a two, three hour car show. This will become an entire afternoon or day,
not just for the automotive connoisseur or the passionate one that's driving the vehicle,
or the kids that are with mom and dad in that car, but also for the family to go out and have
an incredible day. So you're going to see a completely different heightened car show,
a heightened cars and coffee, and that's going to be something fantastic. And I will dribble
you a little bit of a secret. We are planning to do a few smaller events as we build up to a
larger yearly event, which is going to be very incredible. And it's something where we've decided
we want to just tease the market a couple quarters first before we come out with our big one at the
end of the year. And hopefully this will be something that lasts for years to come.
So now we can reveal the exact location of Driven. Harrison, how excited are you to bring this
exclusive car show to the Abbey Aventura? Yeah, the Abbey is a really incredible opportunity
for us as a company. We're very excited in purchasing it with our partners in Simon Property Group.
It's a 216,000 foot lifestyle center and we don't really have, we don't have an open air
component of our center. And so this really lends us the opportunity to program it in a unique manner.
Our positioning here is going to be continuing to deliver best in class food and beverage.
There's a real component for lifestyle. We've got anatomy that just opened this past November,
25,000 square feet. It's their best facility to date. And as we continue to slowly unveil
new tenants that we'll be having here, I think the positioning is going to be great just because
all these F&B tenants, whether it be SDK, Amalfi Lama, Harana, Joey's out of Canada,
these are brands that deliver high quality F&B that are going to be really excited
to create these VIP experiences and curate something that I think is going to be unique
to our property. So the Esplanade previously and now the Abbey is going to be, I think,
a pretty iconic venue to host the show. Seconding to what he mentioned, I think that
when you go in and you experience what the Abbey is going to be, it is a mix of how Aventura had
the elements of certain open spaces, but it was really a mall. This gives and really solidifies
now every point of luxury when you have an exterior element. So if there's outdoor events
to be had at the mall and there's opportunities for the mall to activate in certain things,
this gives such a beautiful grand, ironically very similar to those that have experienced what the
grand depths and heights are of, for example, the design district as you're walking in the middle,
it really screams this beautifully architecturally sound element with great food and beverage,
great spots. I'm a member of Anatomy. I can raise my hand and say it's one of the best,
if not the best, it's incredible. But we're also excited for it as well, because I think
that is going to add such a very cool complimentary piece to what Driven is and the location.
But just on behalf of the mall and what they are going and the patrons are going to experience,
it's something that I am thrilled for the entire Sofa family to be able to work this out.
We really see it as kind of the front porch for our property.
Perfectly said.
It's very visible off Lehman Cosway, but with the opportunity to program with vehicles
in the outdoor shopping areas, I think it's going to be something that's
really unique, similar to design district in a lot of ways. But I think this show will obviously
be a bit more extensive, so we're very excited about that.
How do you see Driven appealing to not just car enthusiasts, but also to your luxury shoppers,
collectors and the families visiting the mall?
Yeah. I mean, our visitation just in July was up 11% over last year. We have 20 million visitors
annually that come and that doesn't include international visitation.
The mayor likes to say we're the number two photograph destination outside of Disney World.
I don't have any credible source behind that, but I'm going to take that sound bite.
But I think for us, we have the demographic already on property that will be interested
in attending. And I think obviously we have a variety of brands. We've got over 50 food and
beverage operators and 300 consumer brands on property. They'll all be very excited to collaborate
with Brett, with all these various brands, the car brands that we're bringing in to really create
a unique experience that feels kind of hyper-local to our property.
So I think that's perfectly said. I think the destination of what we're going to create here
is something more than just a car show. And I think, look, at the end of the day, cars really
do unite people. And when you see what Harrison has done under his directive in the mall, you're
through the last 15 years, 20 years, we don't live under a rock. We know that there's been many
retail centers across the world that have struggled. We've seen many retail centers struggle because
of elements like online shopping and mammoths like Amazon. But it's ironic that when you see
Aventura grow into what it's grown into, they have not skipped a beat. They have not taken
their foot off the gas. They are running on all 12 cylinders. And I have to give kudos to Harrison,
his family, and their team, because as a young man born in Aventura, I watched him take over this
and turn this into what it is. And it is not anymore just a shopping center. It is literally a mix
of art and incredible curated art installations and incredible opportunities for children to go
into the mall and become just fully immersed with this Aventura mall experience, making the
shopping experience easier for families. I've noticed this increase of security, not that
Aventura needs it. We're in probably one of the safest areas in the world. But it gives clients,
it gives patrons an opportunity to walk in and feel comfortable and safe. So when you see all
of this that was created, and then you see the sprinkle of walks of life and brands from all
over the world, and brands that we would have never expected to be in Aventura mall are knocking on
their door saying, no, no, no, no, no, we need to be here. You're seeing stores like, for example,
the Apple Store has grown from so many different locations into now, them having this breathtakingly
architectural designed exterior Apple Store as a flagship in the Miami market.
It's Norman Foster. It's incredible. So you see all these things and then you quickly realize
this is not a mall. This is a destination. This is a mix of so much.
In our opinion, just, well, it's really Jackie, my mom and our CEO's opinion, is that humans are
inherently social creatures. And so while the market and everybody was going in one direction
on retail, we took the opposite. We expanded the mall in 2018. We built an additional 300,000 square
feet with the Apple, with 12 different vendors in our new state of the art food hall. Largest
Nike store in Miami, we have a 30,000 square foot Zara. And so part of the direction we've taken is
really creating spaces for people to congregate and also interact with the property. We have a
four hour art tour that we have that you can take with public art because we feel like we have an
obligation, whether or not people want to interact with it, to give them the opportunity to see
museum quality art in a place that they frequent. And I think this will just be
a further extension of that approach. You see, when you go to the mall and you see a few vehicles
that the mall has the opportunity to possibly advertise for corporate brands, not necessarily
just dealerships, you'll walk in the mall today and you'll see brands like Mercedes and Bentley
and Porsche. And of course, when you're there, you see the children because I was a kid one day.
I remember. I still think I'm 15 sometimes, but I remembered walking into the mall and me
being a car dealer and me having petroleum in my veins, I would still walk up to the car and just
admire and be like, wow, this is great. So what we're doing is adding such an extra complimentary
aspect for the patrons of the mall and the individuals that are there, but also for the
community to come as a drawback. I don't think anybody could sit in front of any of us today and
say, I don't think this is a good idea. I don't want to look at $150 million worth of supercars.
This is going to be wow at what other mall have you had this experience or online shopping. Has
this been able to give you the same feel touch and experience by having to go and return that dress
or pair of shoes three times because it doesn't fit? No, we got to throw that out. There's a time
and place for those products, but there's daily experiences and there's a purpose for everybody
to meet. And just like he said, as families congregate there, the communities congregated
there. And instead of him and the family looking at the difficult things of what could have been
on the horizon, like many people did and try to double back, they actually doubled down and they
continued to move forward. And that's one of the reasons why I respect Harrison and his family so
much because I've been able to watch it, which started with his grandfather all the way up under
the leadership of Harrison. For me, this moment is iconic because this is several Titan brands
working together, not for profit. We're not looking at this because we want to create these grand
businesses. We solely want to do this for the greater good of the city of excellence, for the
greater good of what the Aventura Mall is, our brands. And we just want to be the best at this,
which is why whatever car show exists in South Florida after ours, I truly feel bad for.
Will it feature any lifestyle or hospitality elements to it, VIP lounges, partner experiences,
showcases, activations? Like I said, we've got 50 restaurants within the property. Some of them
are local to the community. Some of them are national brands. All of them, once we tell them
about this opportunity, will be eager to work with us here. So we're looking forward to curating
a real variety of VIP experiences that will be obviously unique to the property.
And retailers as well. I think we do a ton of pop-ups, whether it be a large Christmas
pop-up with Dior during the holidays. We consistently work with our brands. And so
I think this will be another opportunity for them to flex their muscles and align with who
wouldn't want to align with the Ferraris and Bentleys and Rolls Royces of the world. So it provides
them a great opportunity to further that luxury cache. And the proximity of where the location
is of the mall. We have so many great, let's just say, for the folks. And there will be many that
will come in just to experience it for the weekend. Maybe they ship their car. Maybe they don't.
Maybe they just want to be a part of it because their children have seen it. And other times,
they'll come, you know, one quarter and then the next quarter say, I need to be a part of this.
I want to make, and this is part of what we're going to program. We don't also just want to make
this just for the South Florida market. We want to curate an opportunity for clients to ship their
cars in the Northeast and make a weekend in Miami. Have the true Miami experience like we would.
And there's so many great hotel elements close by. We have a turnberry directly across the street,
which is also part of the family. And that's super close to the Aventura Mall and walking distance.
You have the iconic fountain blue on Miami Beach. You have all of these really unique
elements in Miami. So we want to look at this not just as that car show during the quarters and
when we did it, which is one of the reasons why we didn't want to make this an every Saturday thing.
We want to make this where people look forward to this. They put this on their calendar and they
start to dismiss the other noise of other shows that may be going on because they know they want
to put their effort and emphasis on coming to driven because there's a reason and a purpose to
be here. People are going to make weekends out of this. And just one other thing is our
dwell time with 20 million people that come, our average dwell time on property is four hours
plus. So when he talks about family spending their afternoon here, I mean, your kids,
you're probably already spending time here, a lot of these visitors. And so this is a place where
you could spend half the day at the car show and spend the other half of the day in the mall on
property. So we're really looking to curate an experience that can be something where you
come for lunch and you stay for dinner. And I think that's really going to lend well because
we're already a place for families. And that's really what I think is aligned in terms of positioning
for this show. So this is going to be the place to be obviously weather wise January, May, November,
where else? I think I've gotten down pat the rain dance. I bought the outfit and everything. So
I've gotten my cha cha down. It's worked time after time. But I got to tell you, it's it's
really interesting. And the more you know, we even sit here and we talk about it when you really
think about the nucleus of what's created. It's incredible. And for those that have never been
to Aventura past the mall, and if people obviously you have to be living under a rock, if you've
lived in South Florida and haven't gone to the mall at least once. But if you haven't been recent,
your your jaw is going to be on the floor. And if you take time to drive the surrounding areas
directly, I'm talking within feet of the mall, you have one of the most beautiful Don Sofer
nature walks three and a half miles where the entire city congregates and gets together on,
you know, Friday, Saturday and Sundays and goes on a beautiful nature walk, you'll see guys riding
road bikes, you'll see families jogging, you'll see kids feeding the ducks. Like I mentioned,
a hotel that's across the street also has one of the largest aqua pools and water slides and a
wave rider. So when I say that the reason this is going to become bigger than just a show,
we are going to make this a destination. And the truth is, Aventura mall and the team doesn't
even need this because they already are such a great draw. But this is almost so synonymous,
it just it just flows, it sinks, it's a piece of Legos that works, no pun intended, like in the
perfect fit to bring this to become probably one of Miami's most successful car shows.
And the irony also is one thing our team has been focusing on is creating annual events that
don't coincide with citywide events. So, you know, you've got Basel, we'll do pop ups and
activations for Basel, but you know, unique activations that can be for our property, for our
city. And I think this is really going to be something where, you know, potentially people
would want to fly in for our November event, because I think it's going to be something
really sophisticated and incredible. So sounds like an amazing project. Best of luck with it.
And thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you too for joining us. We'll see you next time
on DuPont Registry Talks. And remember, drive safely.
About this episode
DRIVEN is being shaped as a curated luxury car event at Aventura Mall, built around a broader lifestyle experience rather than a standard parking-lot show. The team highlights the mall’s scale, strong visitation, and long dwell times as reasons it can support a destination event. They also describe a rollout with smaller activations first, leading toward a larger annual gathering that blends cars, retail, dining, and art.
Join Harrison Soffer and Brett David as they explain how DRIVEN will redefine Miami’s luxury automotive lifestyle through design, community, and curated experiences with its maiden event this weekend. Listen now!
