Tomorrow’s shopping center will be much less like yesterday’s interior shopping center. Instead, the shopping center will continue to evolve towards centers of interior-exterior lifestyle which offer not only retail but also catering, entertainment, health and well-being, residential and community spaces.
“Retail sale and autonomous shopping centers as we know in the past belong to the past,” explains Jose Sanchez, director and design chief for mixed use, DLR Group.
Consumers today want more than shopping centers. They are looking for destinations that mix retail, catering and entertainment, say Sanchez and other industry experts. Consumers want to interact with the products they see could see – and finally buy – online. They are looking for shopping experiences that they can’t get on their phone.
“Today’s buyers are looking for gaming experiences and emotional commitment, a chance to disconnect from their devices, and the opportunity to create memories and live what they see on their screens,” explains Nelly Augustyn, director of Chipman Design Architecture.
Indeed, the border between shopping centers and development developments is blurred. “For traditional shopping centers, we see a big change towards models for mixed use,” explains Rob Budetti, director partner, AO. The incorporation of elements for mixed use in lifestyle centers is “the biggest change in this space”, explains Jade Nunes, director of the retail market, Core States Group.
For the shopping center projects, however, financial pressures – including high construction costs and material rates and interest rates – are a permanent challenge. Many lenders now require projects to be praised at 70% before funding, says Budetti – “a much higher threshold than in the past.”
In addition to the financial challenges, there is also “a general supersaturation on most markets”, explains Trevor Pollard, director, Kenneth Park Architects (KPA). As a result, there are “very few update centers envisaged,” he said.
To meet consumer demand for destination purchases in the midst of a difficult financial environment, many developers and designers reinvent current shopping and shopping centers, instead of building news. They transform existing shopping shopping centers and life centers, transforming these spaces into experiential destinations.
“The new construction is limited, the developers focus more on adaptive reuse and the redevelopment for mixed use of existing properties,” explains Robert Oppenheimer, the main project architect, Little Diversified Architectural Consulting.