Across the country, mixed-use lifestyle centers are a growing trend, and with about a dozen projects in the planning stage, Phoenix will be catching up with such leader states as New York, California and Florida, according Patrice Duker, spokeswoman for the Manhattan-based International Council of Shopping Centers.
Shoppers love these malls for several reasons.
Department stores, which have traditionally anchored malls, are consolidating, opening stand-alone stores and closing locations, meaning there are fewer stores to go into new malls. Mixed-use lifestyle centers have smaller buildings and work well without anchors, according to Will Ander, a senior partner of McMillanDoolittle, a retail strategy company based in Chicago.
Placing condos and offices above retail space and restaurants means developers get the most out of the land as prices go up, unlike a traditional mall, which is typically no taller than three stories, said David Scholl, senior vice president of development Westcor, which owns many of the Valley’s malls.
Lastly, suburban development is starting to look like mini urban development. As populations move farther from city centers, people are looking for convenient shopping, with restaurants, entertainment options and places to live all within walking distance, or a short drive, Ander said.
"A lot of people like to work in the same environment where they shop and sleep," said David Glimcher, president of Glimcher Ventures Southwest, developers of Parke West in Peoria. "This type of building encourages walking; no traffic, no commute. You have everything there that you need."
Combining retail, residential and office space adds value to each element of the development. For example, why live in a regular condo complex when you can live in one where the downstairs windows are always done by the Gap, Anthropologie and Crate & Barrel?
Empty nesters Ken and Debra Clark were the first to move into the lofts in northeast Phoenix’s Kierland Commons in May 2005. Ken loves living above Banana Republic, looking out at the Greene House restaurant.
He said the apartments above stores reminded him of the small-town lifestyle he always wanted.
"My wife loves to shop, and she thought it’d really be neat to be able to park the car at 5 p.m. and not need it again," he said. "If I get bored watching TV, I can go down, get a cup of coffee, go out on one of the park benches and watch the people. There’s always kids playing in the fountain and running around, and it’s almost like a fashion show half the time, people coming and going."
The Valley’s outdoor malls, current and proposed, function like faux downtowns to some degree, with wide walkways, trees and convenient parking.
But they’re not actual downtowns.
The idea of authenticity is important to developers; if a place feels "real" to people, they will spend more money to live and shop there, where they feel a connection, according to Arizona State University Professor Nan Ellin.
"In these areas, in cities, there are spontaneous interactions, excitement, the unexpected," said Ellin, director of the urban and metropolitan studies program and author of the book Integral Urbanism. "The lifestyle centers are creating part of that."
Developers don’t want these malls to look like they’ve been designed by Disney, they said, but they all admit that creating authenticity in a new place, on the edge of a new housing area, is tough.
So they’re getting creative. At Tempe Marketplace, developer Vestar is incorporating locally created modern outdoor art throughout the project. Vestar also is adding a laser light canopy 100 feet above the mall and projecting a soft blue light on the embankment along the Salt River, all to make the mall feel distinctive, said David Larcher, Vestar’s executive vice president.
Some developers are matching the streets of the malls with the existing city street grids so they’re seamlessly integrated into their surrounding communities. Most malls are seeking locally owned boutiques to offer shoppers a unique shopping experience.
Lastly, developers are working with city planners to build outdoor malls that are public-private partnerships, adding public performance spaces, libraries, health centers and other civic buildings, with the ability to be remodeled easily to meet community needs as the areas grow.
All those efforts at authenticity are diminished if tenants have to leave the developments to go grocery shopping or to fill a prescription, said architect Will Bruder, whose Phoenix firm is working on One Scottsdale, an upscale lifestyle center in a master-planned community.
"They have to be part of a community where you can wake up, walk to get coffee, pick up your laundry," he said. "You go around Kierland and it’s like a movie set. No one living in Kierland can meet the basic needs of their life without getting into their car and leaving the place. Until people can meet basic needs there, they’re just another shopping center."
Megan Finnerty – The Arizona Republic
