Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/400168
properties with a view to the future faces a formidable task, according to Roy Higgs, president of an eponymous design firm in the Baltimore area. "The most meaningful customer ex- perience is often defined, at least ini- tially, by the look or feel of the shop- ping center," he said. Attempts to capture the nostalgia of Main Street can be formulaic and stale, Higgs says. By contrast, treating the shopping center as a form of theater — backdrop, scenery, lighting and other dramatic elements — can help create the kind of place where people want to see and be seen, he says. Urban sites have an advantage when it comes to leveraging lively public spaces, says Steve Backman, president of Tempe, Ariz.–based Cardon Develop- ment Group. Focused on public-private partnerships, Backman, who collabo- rated with partner Don Cardon on the CityScape mixed-use project in down- town Phoenix, says even interior-facing malls from the 1980s can make signifi- cant improvements by breaking up their cyclopean architecture. "The problem malls face as they seek to make a connec- tion with the public is that they're sur- rounded by such large seas of parking," Backman said. "It is tough. But you do see malls that used to be bleak, fortress- looking buildings from the outside now turning spaces inside out." As Higgs sees it, U.S. developers could learn from the multilevel, mixed- use properties that are commonplace around the globe. Many of these in- clude innovative entertainment, recre- ation and amusement uses that enliven the overall experience, he says. "From a merchandising standpoint, there can be no doubt that food-and-beverage is a key component for consideration to achieve a fulfilling customer experience," he said. "In this regard, shopping center development overseas is, in many ways, ahead of developments in the United States." Having just returned from Istan- bul, Higgs cites that city's proliferation of new shopping centers focused heavily on food-and-beverage. Stateside, the mall sector is not fo- cused exclusively on redevelopments and expansions. Slowly but surely, new malls are popping up around the country. Among the latest is The Mall at University Town Center, an 880,000-square-foot collaboration in Sarasota, Fla., between Taubman Cen- ters and Benderson Development Co. Billed as a "beautiful, tech-savvy and shopper-friendly facility," this two-level, enclosed mall opened last month with about 100 specialty stores and restau- rants, half of which are unique to the market. Anchors include Dillard's, Macy's and Saks Fifth Avenue. Befit- ting today's emphasis on context and complementary uses, the mall is part of a larger development with retail, din- ing, hotel and office space, and a row- ing-competition facility. "The Sarasota market is currently underserved from a retail standpoint," said COO William S. Taubman. "UTC will fill a long-stand- ing shopping void in the local market." When the Taubman-operated City Creek Center mall made its debut in Salt Lake City in March 2012, it made headlines as the first major regional mall to open in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown. The mall report- edly made $200 million in its first nine months of operation. The recession and real estate collapse had forced Howard Hughes Corp. to nix plans for a new mall in Las Vegas, but in October The Shops at Summerlin Centre finally opened for business. The 106-acre, 1.6 million-square-foot project contains 85 stores and restaurants. Like Univer- sity Town Center, it is part of a larger mixed-use development. Meanwhile, Triple Five Group is moving ahead with its ambitious American Dream Mead- owlands project, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex, East Rutherford, N.J. Construction crews are reportedly at work there on a makeover of the existing structure. The project, formerly known as Meadowlands Xanadu and owned by The Mills Corp. and others, stalled dur- ing the recession and sat dormant for five years. Today Triple Five's plans for the multibillion-dollar project, which is slated to open in the fall of 2016, include about 300 stores, a 639,000-square-foot water and amusement park, an indoor ice rink, an indoor ski and snowboard park, a 26-screen movie theater and a concert hall. The ICSC authors cite four reasons for continued optimism about shop- ping center performance: Shopping centers serve an economic and social need; experimentation with new for- mats, designs and technologies is aimed at yielding stronger shopping center performance; shopping centers are in- creasingly complementary to nonstore shopping; and shopping centers satisfy a range of consumer needs and desires. With all that being said, the authors are also frank about the need for retail prop- erties to adapt to change. "This transformation in the indus- try is bringing about one of the most exciting eras in the history of the shop- ping center," the report concludes. "To paraphrase the often-cited retailer Allen Questrom, CEO and board member of several major retailers over his career, if the shopping center did not exist, we would be scrambling to invent it." SCT 46 S C T / N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 4 "The most meaningful customer experience is often defined, at least initially, by the look or feel of the shopping center."