Oct 20 / Press

Breathing New Life into Vintage Properties

By David Moin. October 9, 2026.

At WS Development, there’s an appetite for reviving overlooked retail
properties that have good bones and gilded histories, but suffered
over years of vacancy and neglect.
“It’s a hard business;’ said Samantha David, president of the Chestnut
Hill, Mass.-based WS Development, among the nation’s largest private
development firms. “People sometimes ask me, ‘There’s that property
for sale. Why is nobody buying it?’ If you’ve ever tried to take a vacant
shopping center and bring it back to life, it’s basically a very
complicated puzzle.”

Of the 100-plus properties in the portfolio, she’s eager to discuss
three in particular: Hyde Park Village in Tampa purchased in 2013 for
$45 million, The Royal Poinciana Plaza in Palm Beach purchased in
August 2014 for $22.5 million, and Plaza del Lago in Wilmette, Ill.,
acquired in 2022 for $58.7 million. All three are decades-old, open-air
shopping destinations that have undergone renewal projects and
remerchandising. With each, “We’ve created a new kind of ‘village
center’ bringing together some of the best brands in the world with
these extraordinary local businesses, like an old-time town center
where people would go every day because they needed to get fabric to
sew a dress, or they needed gardening tools. We try to merchandise
that way, so you’re getting everything you need at our places.

“These are not large properties, which is why we’re able to keep them
special,’ said David. “We don’t have space that we have to fill. We have
space that we get to fill with brands that we think will resonate. For
us, certainly there will be expensive things as part of our properties,
but there will also be the best T-shirt, the best Pilates studio, or the
best ice cream cone, and it has nothing to do with how much they
cost. It has to do with making sure it’s the best in its category.”

The properties are just a slice of WS Development, which was
established in 1990 and has evolved into one of the largest privately
owned development firms in the country. The company manages and
leases 25 million square feet of space, ranging from large urban
mixed-use destinations to lifestyle, community and open-air centers,
either built from the ground up or purchased. The projects range in
size, the largest being the Boston Seaport where 7.6 million square
feet of residential, hotel, office, retail, entertainment, civic, cultural
space and open public space across 33 acres is being created. And the
smallest is Plaza del Lago. An additional 10 million square feet of
development is planned.

The 270,000-square-foot Hyde Park Village, spanning six blocks, dates
back to 1905 when the first buildings were constructed. Additional
buildings were added in the 1920s.

“You can still see the beauty of all that historic architecture, even as
we’ve continued to restore and refine it,’ said David, pointing to the
area’s upscale demographics, tree- lined streets and proximity to
water. “You couldn’t ask for a better piece of real estate, but it had
effectively been abandoned. It was half empty. Many of the stores
were planning to close. A few brands we’ve kept,’ such as the
Downtown Dogs pet boutique, the Buddy Brew coffee shop, and The
Hyppo for gourmet ice pops. They’ll be near to Brunello Cucinelli,
Hermes and Cartier, which are opening stores there next year, as well
as Frame, Hill House Home, Rifle Paper Co. and Shack Yoga + Sculpt,
which will open this year. Recently, Ralph Lauren, Zimmermann, Paige,
Alice + Olivia and LoveShackFancy cut the ribbon on stores at Hyde
Park Village, which presents a mix of luxury and contemporary
fashion brands, and local shops for everyday needs. “The higher we go
in terms of elevation of brands, the more we bring in smaller brands
as well,” David said.

The 190,000-square-foot Royal Poinciana Plaza, designed in 1957 by
renowned architect John Volk in the heart of Palm Beach Island,
features lush gardens, palm trees, fountains and two central
courtyards. Upcoming openings this fall include Chloe, Mira Mikati,
Rosie Assoulin and Zimmermann. Bottega Veneta and Dr. Barbara
Sturm recently opened, as did Tutta Mare, a family-owned restaurant
from Sag Harbor, N.Y. “It’s Palm Beach Island’s first waterfront
restaurant, which is quite crazy there aren’t more,’ said David. “Almost
all the waterfront is lined with hotels or homes.”

A performing arts center that had been abandoned for 20 years was
restored and reopened last summer for theater, screenings, concerts
and speaking engagements. The center is operated by the Glazer
family and was renamed Glazer Hall.

Plaza del Lago, built in 1927 on Chicago’s North Shore, is considered
the second oldest shopping center in the U.S. “When you drive into
this property, you see this beautiful Spanish-style architecture, these
old buildings,’ said David. “We basically undertook a full restoration
project to bring all the buildings up to current code and to make them
acceptable for current-day retail. They had these beautiful facades
and architecture, but the infrastructure wasn’t there to support it.”

Brunello Cucinelli and TWP are scheduled to open in early 2027.
Diptyque, Doen and Zimmermann are seen opening this fall, and
Hermes opened just a month ago. Other openings this year were
Marfa Stance, Thom Browne, Peter Millar, Oscar de Ia Renta, The
Henry, Space 519, Pilatesville and Lola + The Boys. Jenni Payne, Rag &
Bone, LoveShackFancy and Veronica Beard were part of the first wave
of retail openings in 2025, relaunching the center. “The community
has embraced it and has welcomed these stores,’ said David. “The
business has been phenomenal right out of the gate. It speaks to this
model that we believe so deeply in.”

WS Development is close to announcing another property acquisition.
“We’re opportunistic,” David said. “We don’t buy things to buy them.
We buy them when we see opportunities that we believe are
extraordinary. We often buy things off market. The Royal Poinciana
wasn’t marketed. They weren’t trying to sell it. We often approach
people on real estate we love.

“We just bought Pittsburgh Station Square, which has an old, beautiful
set of buildings with a huge amount of potential… So those are the
kinds of assets we love. We’re slow and steady in redeveloping them. It
takes many years to do that.”

“But in each of those markets, the thesis is similar – providing the
customer what they need on a daily basis. I think a lot of developers
get excited if they can think a customer will be at their place once a
month. We really want people once a day. That means you’re creating
something that’s actually needed, that it becomes their place.”
Asked how she determines who to lease space to, she said: “It’s truly
old-fashioned boots on the ground – listening and learning. We meet
with as many people as we can. We join many Facebook groups. We
look at as many Instagram posts as we can. We have as many focus
groups as we can. We’re literally in the community trying to soak in
much information about what people want. We’ll do surveys. We really
try to solicit a lot of feedback. As important, if not more so, is
speaking to the brands themselves. The brands know better than we
do where they’re resonating and where their customer is.”

What’s most required in redeveloping and re-leasing properties, she
said, is patience. “Because we’re privately owned, my partners and I
have the ability to be patient and to make choices for the long term,
both from a tenant mix perspective and an investment perspective.
I’ve had so many people, all the big restaurant names, come to me in
Palm Beach, looking for the restaurant space where Tutta Mare
ultimately opened. There are some big restaurant chains that are
extraordinary. We have the Palm Beach Grill here, which is owned and
operated by Hillstone. But I wanted a place where the owners would
be there, they’d know your name, and take you to your table.”