Architects Learn How to Create Inviting Retail Spaces for Less Money
Oct 27, 2009 10:30 AM, By Elaine Misonzhnik
The minimalist approach
The need to be frugal has certainly made its mark on new projects. While consumers still seem to prefer pedestrian-friendly retail properties including town centers and mixed-use centers to the traditional enclosed malls, developers have realized they have to abandon the cookie-cutter approach of making those centers look like they belong in another time and place, says John Clark, principal with Design Collective, Inc., a Baltimore, Md.-based architecture and design firm. Now that the novelty has worn off, properties built to resemble Mediterranean villas or quaint English villages—even though they might be surrounded by modern American architecture—make customers feel like they are in a tired, inauthentic space. Instead of spending a big chunk of their design budget on creating a mirage, developers would do better to create simple, timeless spaces that showcase the retailers, rather than the centers, adds Navid Maqami.
For example, at Rego Park II, a 1.7-million-square-foot mixed-use center in Queens, N.Y. (and another Vornado project), GreenbergFarrow and the interior designer are using a combination of bold colors along the walls of the center's pedestrian gallery to draw the shoppers' eyes toward the stores, many of which, including Old Navy, Century 21 and Marshalls, will be heavily geared toward apparel. The appropriate use of color lends retail environments some energy, Maqami expalins. At the same time, it's cost effective when compared to creating a unique, opulent storefront for every single retailer and the color scheme can be easily changed when tenants move in and out of the center.
"Our approach is to try to keep it as simple as possible, because the retail brands and the merchandising have to stand out and the center design [has to be] the backdrop of their identity," says Cho Suzumura, principal with MulvannyG2. "Commonly, we use a timeless design, with very simple, limited detail."
On the other hand, developers might want to pay more attention to a feature that plays an important role for customers, but that is often not thought out enough in planning—a convenient and attractive parking layout. When Greenberg Farrow completes East River Plaza, a 650,000-square-foot retail center under construction in upper Manhattan, the property will contain a seven-level parking garage with parking for 1,248 cars. But instead of placing the garage adjacent to the five-level retail structure and asking the shoppers to navigate largely empty, ill-lit spaces to get to the stores, the firm is using a canopied gallery space to simulate the feel of a street-level shopping experience.
Meanwhile, at another vertical project, the 1-million-square-foot Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market, GreenbergFarrow connected the two three-story buildings containing the stores to a six-level parking garage. The layout allows each retailer at the project to have front-of-field parking, so shoppers get the suburban experience of parking their car and walking directly to the store they've come to visit.
If you are asking customers to walk up and down the property, you better make them feel it's worth their while, Maqami says.
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