Architects Learn How to Create Inviting Retail Spaces for Less Money
Oct 27, 2009 10:30 AM, By Elaine Misonzhnik
Less is more
When it comes to the repositioning of existing centers, the same minimalist approach often works best. Since every center comes with a different shopper profile, developers might want to conduct customer surveys to figure out exactly who their customers are and what design features are important to them. For example, Kevin Nice, principal with Arrowstreet Inc., a Somerville, Mass.-based architecture firm, recently worked for a mall owner who thought the mall's main clientele was made up of tourists and local office workers, partly because the property was located in a tourist-friendly urban area. After Arrowstreet recommended completing a shopper survey, however, the owner realized that most of his customers were suburban moms who were attracted to the unique mix of apparel retailers at the center and drove into the city to shop there.
The discovery had a profound impact on how Arrowstreet approached the repositioning—knowing most of the shoppers were women and that they drove long distances to come to the mall made the firm concentrate on upgrading the bathrooms, adding more visible landscaping components and providing some soft seating to give visitors a chance to rest after a long trip. At another center, a shopper survey helped reveal that customers wanted to see the property become more environmentally sustainable. Unknown to them, the owner had already made significant efforts to make the center environment-friendly, so the repositioning program focused on making those efforts more visible.
Costumer surveys reveal what your most frequent shoppers want. For example, customers traveling long distances may want well manicured landscaping that creates a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere.
"Often, you make assumptions about how important things are to customers and tenants and you might be wrong," says Nice. "The [shopper survey] helps you target your amenity program. And they tend to reduce costs in many cases as well."
When trying to figure out how to spend the repositioning funds, it also makes sense to give first consideration to the areas that are most visible to customers and where customers come into physical contact with the space—including entry ways, floors, handrails and door handles. Maqami recommends trying to figure out which design details the shopper will remember most vividly after he leaves the center—and putting the most emphasis on those details.
Those changes often don't cost a lot. In some urban centers, for example, tired building facades created in the 1970s and 1980s might mask a more attractive facade from earlier decades, notes Brian Wolfe, principal with Perkowitz+Ruth, a Long Beach, Calif.-based architecture firm. That's what happened when his firm was working on redeveloping a retail center in Long Beach into a combination of office and retail condominium uses. When Perkowitz+Ruth took down the diagonal cedar siding from the center's façade, underneath was a beautiful art deco version.
The firm restored the older façade and it turned out to be "very consistent with respect to historical architecture" of the setting. The façade work, along with new landscaping and refurbishment of the parking area, cost $58 per square foot. So stripping away the older surface might be a way to liven up the building's exterior without tearing down the entire structure. And in suburban malls, a new paint job can go a long way in giving an existing façade a more modern aesthetic.
Meanwhile, sometimes apparent problems—such as trees that obscure the center's visibility—can be turned to an advantage if they are put inside planters and moved to an area that contains a lot of cafes and restaurants. "We look at pedestrian circulation—where there is an opportunity to gather a food use, we create a little bit of an al fresco environment and then you can relocate the trees there," says Wolfe.
He estimates that boxing trees and relocating them can cost as little as $500.
When shoppers move inside the center, lighting and common area arrangements take precedence over other details. And while it's become cost prohibitive to tear down existing enclosed structures and turn them into open-air environments, installing a few sky lights or a 20-foot-long solar tube into the ceiling can be done for a few thousand dollars, according to Wolfe. When Perkowitz+Ruth installed several 2 foot by 6 foot modular skylights at Buena Park, an enclosed mall in Buena Park, Calif., the installation cost from $2,500 to $5,000 a skylight.
In renovating Citrus Crossing, Perkowitz+Ruth's design opened up a dark corridor leading to a theater and turned it into an open-air centerpiece to the project.
Also, a few adjustments in layout here and there can create a dramatic change in the feel of the property. When Perkowitz+Ruth began work on the former Foothill Center in Azusa, Calif. (now Citrus Crossing), the results of a community outreach program showed that shoppers wanted to keep the existing movie theater, but felt it needed an upgrade.
At the time, the theater was boxed off by the row of buildings in front of it. Perkowitz+Ruth tore down one of the buildings and created a paseo leading up to the movie theater, which now has some cafes in front of it. "We made it the heart of the project for outdoor seating," Wolfe says. In the course of the project, which also included site improvements, offsite public improvements, landscaping and façade renovations, Perkowitz+Ruth managed to keep two thirds of the center's existing structures. The project cost $14 million, or $75 per square foot.
Sometimes, all it takes to make the mall's common area more attractive are a few soft seating arrangements and greater attention to landscaping and the shopper might immediately feel a greater sense of connection to the property, the architects say.
"I think a new handrail in a mall or a new floor can instantly change its appearance and we are doing a lot of [that] as well as creating much more contemporary planter elements and introducing extensive amounts of soft seating," says John Clark. "It completely changes the feel of a mall and makes people more comfortable there."
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