Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/528948
of a lively entertainment district at a re-envisioned property (University Mall is now University Place), retailers were more receptive, Buechler says. To date, the 365,000-square-foot redevelopment, slated for completion in September of next year, has attracted a 52,000-square-foot Silverspot Cinema and a 16,000-square-foot Aveda Institute cosmetology/beauty school. In June, Madison Marquette was negotiating a letter of intent with Forever 21's F21 Red for a 16,000-square-foot space at the mall. "Render- ings and project elevations really do make a difference in our site selection, particularly if there is any question about visibility or sight lines where a space is situated, or if the redevelopment is so extensive as to transform the character or experience of a center," said Patrick Delaney, a Forever 21 real estate manager who is overseeing the expansion program for F21 Red. Tailoring data to meet the specific needs of real estate ex- ecutives at the likes of F21 Red continues to be an important part of the marketing process, Buechler says. But when the goal is to make a shopping center stand out from the com- petition, another approach is to attract attention by doing something novel and unexpected. This is what happened in April when real estate executives from Nike were touring The Shops at SkyView Center, a remerchandised outlet proj- ect in the Flushing section of the New York City borough of Queens. As the executives stepped off an elevator, they heard pounding music and watched a flash mob break into a dance routine created specifically for Nike. "The dancers popped off their jackets and were all in branded Nike gear," said Karen E. Fluharty, partner and chief strategist of Montville, N.J.–based Strategy+Style Marketing Group. "The dancers did this great three- or four-minute routine and then just kind of dissipated, as flash mobs do. Meanwhile, we basked in the glow of having made Nike really happy." Fluharty and her team staged the event with less than 48 hours' notice about the impending visit by executives from this strategically important tenant. Given its location in Flush- ing, Shops at SkyView Center faced strong competitors from better-known markets around the New York region, Fluharty says. By demonstrating such strong enthusiasm for the Nike brand, as well as a commitment to creative marketing, the flash mob event helped landlord Onex Real Estate Partners trump the competition. "In less than six months, we went from the flash mob occurring to having the store open," Flu- harty said. This was not the first time Fluharty's team had leveraged unconventional methods to tout the benefits of a property or market. When executives of one luxury chain were skeptical about whether to open a store in Detroit, Strategy+Style Mar- keting Group took them on a helicopter tour of the area. "We wanted to fly them over the yacht club and show them these 6,000- and 7,000-square-foot houses with swimming pools out back," she said. "It really helped sell the market." Along the same lines, when Baltimore-based Paragon Outlets was leasing a project in the Bronx, N.Y., Strategy+Style Market- ing Group timed a retailer site tour in a way designed to pack extra oomph. "We could have just said: 'Hey, do you want to come see this site in the Bronx?' But if we had done that, the response probably would have been: 'Not so much,'" Fluharty said. "Instead, we said to them: 'Come tour this outlet site in the Bronx, and then we'll all go to Yankee Stadium for Open- ing Day.' It made a big difference." The growing popularity of downtown redevelopments over the past few years has also created a greater need for landlords and their representatives to answer logistics-related questions that do not typically arise when retailers are scouting for sub- urban sites, says David F. Baker, a principal of Baker Story McDonald Properties, in Nashville, Tenn. The 32-acre Capitol View mixed-use project, now under construction in Nashville's North Gulch area, is but one example, Baker says. With a re- ported price tag of $500 million and a development timeline of up to 10 years, the project will comprise 1,000 units of mul- tifamily residential space, 1 million square feet of offices, two hotels and 75,000 square feet of retail. "Needless to say, I did not get a three-page brochure with a map of the site plan for this one," Baker said. Prospective tenants will have lots of ques- tions about the project, especially operational questions related to parking, deliveries, food smells, noise and the like. "The re- tailer has got to be comfortable that it can survive in an urban area," Baker said. "It's more complicated than in the suburbs." Like Fluharty, Baker likes to take retail executives on site visits that can demonstrate a market's growth potential in memorable ways. He recently drove past a Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams shop while taking executives on a tour of the city. This was no coincidence: He knew full well that Jeni's has been doing a brisk business in Nashville. "The lines are out the door and halfway down the block at every Jeni's 46 S C T / J u l y 2 0 1 5 a f l a s h m o b a t t h e s h o p s a t C e n t e r , n e w y C i t y , u r g e s n e x e C s t o l e a s e s p a C e .