Jeweler To Build 5-Story Flagship With Rooftop Restaurant On Las Olas Blvd.
Family-owned Weston Jewelers is launching a glitzy expansion in Fort Lauderdale.
The jewelry seller, owned by Ed and Tracey Dikes, plans to start construction next year on a five-story, 40K SF flagship store on Las Olas Boulevard with a rooftop restaurant and office space that would serve as its corporate headquarters.
CEO and co-founder Ed Dikes told Bisnow he expects construction to start in the spring, with plans to open doors just in time for the holidays on Dec. 1, 2027. The retailer sells Swiss luxury watches from Rolex, Breitling, Cartier, Chopard, Omega and Tudor.
An affiliate of the company paid $7M for the site at 1117 E. Las Olas Blvd. last month, according to property records. Dikes said they had been searching for a site for nearly five years.
The inspiration to merge a dining experience with shopping stemmed from luxury furniture store Restoration Hardware, which has its RH Rooftop Restaurant at RH West Palm, Dikes said.
“You have that feeling when you get in there — a beautiful, luxury experience of buying all this beautiful furniture,” he said. “It's going to happen when you walk in and you'll have that rooftop restaurant after you finish doing your shopping, and we’re going to be doing a lot of incredible things that we’re working on right now.”
Plans for the building, designed by Miami-based Arquitectonica, call for 20K SF of store space, including a bridal section focused on wedding jewelry, 7K SF to house its executive branch, and a 5K SF restaurant open to the public.
Weston Jewelers will keep its current flagship location at Weston Town Center, where the company was founded in 2001. It occupies a 5K SF store there with about 15 employees, and Dikes said he expects the company's headcount to double with the move.
A store selling Swiss watches might be more likely to open in Miami or West Palm Beach than the heart of Downtown Fort Lauderdale, but Dikes said he expects Broward County's biggest city to be an emerging force in luxury retail.
“Those areas are already taken up by all the luxury brands,” Dikes said. “We want to go somewhere where it's still not there yet, but it will be.”
Dikes pointed to new luxury developments scheduled to come online in the coming years, like the $2B St. Regis-branded Bahia Mar planned to break ground in 2026 and Fort Lauderdale’s title as the “yacht capital” of the U.S. A yacht-branded tower is being planned along the city's waterfront.
“Fort Lauderdale is on fire,” Dikes said. “There's just a lot of wealth and a lot of people coming from all over. So there's going to be a lot of people who live here and a lot of tourism as well.”
Downtown Fort Lauderdale's 5M SF of retail space had a vacancy rate of just 5.9% at the end of the second quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Rents grew nearly 3% year-over-year, outpacing overall growth in Broward and Miami.
Weston opened its second location in 2022 at The Shoppes at The Guitar Hotel inside the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
The couple also works with their daughter, Danni Dikes, who is in charge of marketing and social media, and their son, Jesse Dikes, who is being groomed to take over operations in the future.
“I can't wait for this to finally happen, and I can imagine that opening day and all these great people that are going to be around us and all the great people that helped me get to this point right now,” Ed Dikes said.
CLARIFICATION, AUG. 21, 8:30 A.M.: This story has been updated to note that the purchase price was confirmed through property records, not by Ed Dikes.
