Luxury retail pops up to fill void

Marilee Roberts sells exotic, handcrafted jewelry imported from Italy — a gig that so far, over two years, hasn't involved morphing into a commercial real estate landlord.

But that's about to change. That's because Roberts, who owns Sarasota-based Trebor Style Jewelry, rented out the former Restoration Hardware store at the Westfield Southgate Mall in Sarasota for February. Roberts, in turn, has subleased the space, a 7,000-square-foot showroom, to a host of high-end retailers, from skincare to shoes to Lamborghinis. The temporary mall marketplace, a few miles south of downtown Sarasota, is called Centro Della Moda. That's Italian for center of fashion.

“It's not just a big empty space in there,” Roberts tells Coffee Talk. “It's beautifully designed.”