The six shops in Coconut Village, two of them among the oldest established businesses in the Grove, have offered a wide array of unusual and eclectic goods, including coffee from Nicaragua served in an in-house cafe. All of it will soon be gone.
In June 2021, the Spotlight gave high praise to a “magical mini-mall” called Coconut Village. Located in a 7,000-square-foot storefront at 2982 Grand Ave., Coconut Village was home to six retail outlets that offered an array of purchasing choices: American surfboards and rollerblades, clothing and artwork from craftspeople across the globe, houseplants in pots made of nourishing soil, coffee from Nicaragua served by a member of the coffee-growing family. It was a retail kaleidoscope, more like an art installation than a traditional store. The individual spaces flowed into each other in collective harmony.
Coconut Village had the “Old Grove” vibe that’s rapidly becoming a thing of the past—exotic, eclectic, creative, adventurous. One of the stores, The Maya Hatcha, opened on Grand Ave. in 1968 and stayed in its original location until new owners turned it into a bank. That led to the store’s relocation to Coconut Village. The original tenant of the space that became Coconut Village was Catch A Wave, which sold surfboards, skateboards, rollerblades, and colorful athletic clothing. Catch A Wave started in Coconut Grove 32 years ago in a small shopping center with a gas station that was ultimately replaced by Cocowalk.
Coconut Village will be gone by the end of the year. Businesses that represent the Coconut Grove brand as much as any will continue in other places. But not in Coconut Grove.
The Maya Hatcha will move to a new storefront in Little Havana at 19th Ave. and SW 8th St. Vivian Jordan, the owner who is still a life force for the business after 54 years, will share the space with Kreative Gardens, one of the original six in Coconut Village. Catch A Wave will reopen on SW 27th Ave. next to Shell Lumber. Rina Paguaga, a third-generation member of the Nicaraguan family behind Café Vidita, will continue her business through popups at local markets. Therapia by Aroma, one of the original members of the collective, will continue business from its base in Cauley Square, a historic landmark in South Miami-Dade.
Since Kcüll (pronounced “cool”) has an extended rental agreement, it will be the last member of the Coconut Village collective to leave. A multi-mini-store within a mini-mall, Kcüll is a curated collection that offers small retail spaces to multiple artists and craftspeople. Kcüll will continue to maintain two locations on Calle Ocho. “We wanted to stay in the Grove, but that wasn’t possible,” says owner Jennifer Noll.
These moves are symptomatic of a major change in the retail environment, not only in Coconut Grove but nationwide. In booming neighborhoods like Coconut Grove, rising rents are a key factor. Small local businesses struggle to survive. According to Jennifer Noll, the Coconut Village space will rent for double the price the collective was paying.
The Comras Company, a leading player in the transformation of the Grove’s commercial center, is the landlord for the Grand Ave. space. A nondisclosure agreement with the new tenants will keep their identity a secret until the space reopens as something else—almost certainly not retail—after major renovation.
Vivian Jordan of The Maya Hatcha sums up a lot of what’s happening in Center Grove. “It’s all about money,” she says. “Money talks.”
CoconutGroveSpotlight
