Features

— By Anthony Sanchez, design director and principal, Nadel Architecture + Planning — Consumers are heading back to the shopping mall, which is great news for retail owners, operators and tenants that rely on in-person sales and experiences as part of their respective business models. According to Placer.ai, February and March of this year saw a steady rise in foot traffic at malls nationally. Indoor malls sit just 5 percent below their pre-pandemic foot traffic levels, while open-air shopping malls surpassed 2019 levels for the first time since the pandemic.  The trend marks an incredible resiliency for the retail space, especially as financing and inflationary issues loom over the economy. But with all these shoppers coming back to the mall, the question is: will they recognize it? Anchors Entering a New Era With news of some larger retailers like Macy’s and the Dollar Store closing locations en masse, developers are chomping at the bit to reimagine those spaces. There is exciting potential to recreate them within malls in ways that enhance the overall shopping experience for consumers and attract new foot traffic – all to the benefit of the existing retailers at the shopping center. The result might be a …

If the whole mall redevelopment thing doesn’t work out, you can always become a marriage counselor. Perhaps some additional training and education would be needed for such a career transition to actually take place. But mall and shopping center owners who undertake high-risk redevelopments undoubtedly have firsthand appreciation of the importance of providing clear and courteous communication to the many different groups they deal with, from municipal leaders to longstanding tenants to onsite contract workers. That’s not to say that poor communication will necessarily kill a mall redevelopment. The inability to secure zoning overlay districts, civic partnerships for infrastructural improvements or feasibly priced construction loans in 2024 — these are variables over which mall owners have limited control and can actually sink these projects in their infancy. And those factors only come into play once the development team has done its due diligence and determined what uses and levels of density the project will feature.  “After you’ve considered the macro-level needs of the market and the asset itself, you enter a phase that we call ‘the minefield map,’” says Steve Plenge, CEO of Pacific Retail Capital Partners. “Reciprocal easement agreements [that regulate design or tenancy issues] by parties with ownership …

Sports and entertainment destinations offer several benefits to retail properties — they boost foot traffic, encourage consumers to linger, complement traditional retail and provide opportunities for refilling vacancies. Pickleball, gaming and music venues are some of the most prolific concepts in today’s experiential marketplace.  “These users draw consumers into a development,” says Tim Katt, managing director of Transwestern Real Estate’s sports and entertainment advisory group. “Their ability to take up large, often dormant spaces and activate them is undeniable.”  Industry professionals emphasize that sports and entertainment tenants play a complementary role for traditional retailers. Steven Mueller, senior project manager with St. Louis-based HDA Architects, says that mixing entertainment concepts like pickleball with attached or adjacent restaurants is an “especially hot combination.” The idea is to entice guests to spend more time and money in a single location.  “Entertainment is complementary to retail in the sense that you get cross-pollination between tenants,” says Beau Arnason, executive vice president of asset performance at Columbus, Ohio-based Steiner + Associates. “You may come to a lifestyle center for an entertainment experience, but stop for food, drinks and shopping along the way.” Properly curating entertainment uses within retail and food-and-beverage spaces provides the opportunity to …