<\/p>\n
Jeffrey Berkowitz in a 1996 photo while the Dadeland Station retail complex was under construction. Berkowitz\u2019s real estate company continued operating Dadeland Station throughout the developer\u2019s life. He died Saturday, April 25, 2026, at the age of 78.<\/p>\n
Raul Rubiera<\/p>\n
Miami Herald Staff<\/p>\n
Jeffrey Berkowitz, the Miami retail developer behind the Dadeland Station and Fifth & Alton shopping centers who was also instrumental in securing a permanent home for the Miami Children\u2019s Museum on Watson Island, died Saturday, April 25, at his home in Coral Gables. He was 78.<\/p>\n
A graduate of the University of Miami law school, Berkowitz started a legal career in the 1970s. While helping a developer put together the contracts needed for a project, Berkowitz concluded he could probably do well trying to build things himself, according to his wife, Yolanda Berkowitz.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just became a dealmaker,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was much more suited to his personality.\u201d<\/p>\n
A regular on Miami\u2019s charity gala circuit, Berkowitz loved wearing a tuxedo, regularly set out solo at the wheel of his 47-foot sailboat, Daydream, and wrote a memoir while laid up in bed from a serious car accident suffered two years ago near the Berkowitzes\u2019 summer home in Maine.<\/p>\n
Yolanda and Jeffrey Berkowitz at the April 6, 2013, Be a Kid Again benefit gala at the Miami Children\u2019s Museum, where he served as chair of the board until his death on Saturday, April 25, 2026. Courtesy of the Miami Children\u2019s Museum <\/p>\n
\u201cHe fought so hard,\u201d Andrew Berkowitz said of his father\u2019s final stay in the hospital for a fall he suffered while in frail health from the auto accident. \u201cHe never complained.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Berkowitz\u2019s most high-profile projects never got built. The planned 1,000-foot-tall Miami SkyRise tower on city-owned shoreline by Bayside Marketplace won approval by city voters in 2014 when first proposed, then sparked controversy and political drama when Berkowitz sought county funds to subsidize some of the infrastructure for a tower with rides and an observation deck designed to be a tourist attraction.<\/p>\n
He eventually walked away from the subsidy request in 2016<\/a>, then dropped the Skyrise plans altogether after the 2020 coronavirus pandemic upended tourism projections.<\/p>\n \u201cHe thought it would be transformative for Miami,\u201d Yolanda Berkowitz said, adding that she put a SkyRise pin to the lapel of her husband\u2019s suit before his burial. \u201cHis resiliency and steadfastness and refusal to be discouraged was exceptional.\u201d<\/p>\n Family members said Berkowitz wrote his self-published book, \u201cReflections,\u201d largely as a way for his grandchildren to know him better once he was gone. The book strung together stories he loved to tell again and again, including the time in the \u201880s when presidential candidate Gary Hart attended a party at Berkowitz\u2019s house before heading out for an overnight trip to the Bahamas on a boat named Monkey Business.<\/p>\n Guests at Berkowitz\u2019s funeral on Tuesday included childhood friends from Boston who would gather once a year for a holiday weekend reunion. The group named themselves the \u201cLabor Day Loonies.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeffrey Lee Berkowitz was born on Feb. 4, 1948, in Brookline, Massachusetts, to Paul and Elinore Berkowitz. His family owned the Old Mr. Boston liquor company. After attended Deerfield Academy for high school, he earned a political science degree at Cornell University before heading south to Miami for law school.<\/p>\n He launched Berkowitz Development Group in the 1980s, and in the 1990s pioneered the idea of vertical retail by stacking big-box stores atop each other in the Dadeland Station shopping complex off of U.S. 1 near Kendall. \u201cThat was a unique concept of taking advantage of a smaller piece of property,\u201d said Henry \u201cHank\u201d Adorno, a Miami lawyer who was a longtime Berkowitz friend.<\/p>\n Berkowitz repeated the strategy in South Beach a decade later with the opening of the Fifth & Alton retail center on Fifth Street, creating the unofficial entrance to South Beach for drivers on the MacArthur Causeway. In all, Berkowitz developed about 2 million square feet of commercial real estate.<\/p>\n A prominent donor to national Democrats<\/a> and a reliable donor at the local level, Berkowitz used his political connections and development know-how when the Miami Children\u2019s Museum needed a new home in the 1990s. He helped secure a deal with the city of Miami for public land on Watson Island, encouraged leadership to pursue alternative revenue sources that included housing a charter school, and led the way through the local political hoops needed to get a digital billboard approved on museum property visible from the MacArthur.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was an incredible risk taker. He believed the institution could dream big,\u201d said Deborah Spiegelman, chief executive of the museum, which Berkowitz helped found and where he served as board chair until his death. \u201cWhen you say Children\u2019s Museum in Miami, it\u2019s synonymous with the name Jeff Berkowitz.\u201d<\/p>\n Flanked by sons Andrew (left) and Michael (right), Jeffrey Berkowitz poses before the new sign for Jeff Berkowitz Way at the Miami Children’s Museum on June 13, 2024, in Miami. Berkowitz, who died on April 26, 2026, served as chair of the board for the museum. JASON KOERNER Courtesy of the Miami Children\u2019s Museum <\/p>\n