A trendy store is planning a South Florida debut. But will the mall be there?
Wayfair, the trendy e-commerce furniture and home good store, has announced its first large-format store in Florida.
The company plans to open a two-level store at Galleria in Fort Lauderdale in late 2027
The 46-year-old mall that has developers moving ahead with a proposed retail space that would mingle alongside a 170-room hotel and several 30-story residential rental buildings. The Live Local Act, a state law passed in 2023 to encourage developers to build more affordable housing, is the key driving the redesign of the faded mall that gained new owners in September 2025.
“Our vision is to restore the Galleria as the premier shopping and lifestyle destination for Broward County,” Russell Galbut, founder of GFO Investments, one of the new owners, said last fall.
READ MORE: Galleria Mall redevelopment plans
Wayfair, which has 2 million Instagram followers, wants to live in 94,000 square feet of the mall’s retail space.
“Galleria Fort Lauderdale’s transformation creates an ideal setting for us to introduce our in-store experience to a new community of customers,” said Liza Lefkowski, vice president of merchandising and stores at Wayfair, in an email to the Miami Herald.
Customers can shop for “Wayfair Verified” items and take them home the same day — smaller home furnishings, flower pots and kitchen appliances, for instance. For larger items — refrigerators, sofas, beds, big rugs. Murphy sofa beds — the store will arrange delivery.
The opening builds on Wayfair’s growing regional footprint that includes Wayfair’s luxury brand store Perigold at CityPlace in West Palm Beach and its specialty furnishings store Birch Lane at Mizner Park in Boca Raton. A Wayfair outlet store is in Orlando.
The Fort Lauderdale Galleria Wayfair store that would open in the redeveloped space on East Sunrise Boulevard would mark Wayfair’s sixth brick-and-mortar store. Two are open in Wilmette, Illinois, and Atlanta, Georgia. Upcoming stores in 2026 include Columbus, Ohio and Denver, Colorado. Westchester, New York, follows in early 2027, and then the Fort Lauderdale store.
“As we continue to grow our retail footprint, entering Florida with a namesake store is an exciting next step for Wayfair,” said Lefkowski.
What about Fort Lauderdale’s Galleria mall?
The Galleria, as most shoppers today know it, officially opened as an enclosed mall in November 1980, with anchors Burdines and Saks Fifth Avenue. Neiman Marcus and Lord & Taylor followed in the early-1980s.
None of those anchors remain at Galleria today. Burdines was absorbed by Macy’s in 2005, and that store is still open. Other current anchors include an Apple Store, a Dillard’s department store, Seasons 52 and The Capital Grille restaurants, and an H&M in the former Saks space.
This Galleria 1980 newcomer, seen as an upscale addition to the Fort Lauderdale landscape, happened in same month of television’s “Who Shot J.R.?” pop culture moment. November 1980 also marked President Jimmy Carter’s last months in office. And voters passing an antibilingualism ordinance in Miami-Dade County that month.
Before it was Galleria, the space was the Sunrise Shopping Center, an open-air retail complex that opened in January 1954. The shopping center debuted with a small Saks Fifth Avenue, an F.W. Woolworth five-and-dime, a Food Fair grocery store and a Thom McAn shoe store.
This story was originally published April 10, 2026 at 6:03 AM.
