Celebrating Lifestyles
Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Centers, which has been influential in leading the industry in the development of lifestyle centers for more than 20 years, continues to pioneer retail development trends.
Stephen O’Kane

The Shops of Saddle Creek in Germantown, Tennessee, was Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Center’s first major development.

For more than 20 years, Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Centers has been integral in the development of retail centers throughout the country. The Memphis, Tennessee-based company coined the term “lifestyle center” after the opening of its first major development, The Shops of Saddle Creek, in Germantown, Tennessee, an affluent suburb of Memphis. The developer created the name to reflect that the center catered to the shopping, dining and entertainment lifestyle of its customer base.

Since that time Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Centers has adapted to the changing times to make sure the product it offers remains ahead of the curve and of the highest quality. Shopping Center Business spoke with Terry McEwen, president, and Dan Poag, chief executive officer, to find out just how much the concept has evolved during the past two decades.

The minds behind Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Centers understood from the beginning how to create a successful retail destination. A quick look at the history of the company, coupled with its current palette, shows just how well Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Centers is doing its job.

“When we first started doing lifestyle centers 20 years ago, they were quite a bit different than they are today,” says McEwen. “Yet, the same principles still apply to our centers today and the original ones are still very successful. The Shops of Saddle Creek is probably still the highest sales per square foot center in the mid-South, and continues to get stronger every year.”

Dan Poag and Terry McEwen did not start off to challenge the mall industry, but simply wanted to create an environment in which they, their spouses and friends would enjoy shopping. Dan and Terry  partnered to create a new destination — a shopping experience that gave consumers a sense of place, security and convenience — while continuing to offer high-quality retailers and amenities.

The idea sprang from personal experiences. Poag, who had a background in strip center development, wanted to offer shoppers easy accessibility to storefronts and also allow them to feel safe and secure.

“Lifestyle centers offer a much more compact and efficient shopping experience, because the retail is more focused on the target customer,” says Poag. “Most regional malls try to serve all customers, which forces the customer to pass many stores in which they have no interest to find that one store that they are seeking.”

The Shops of Saddle Creek catered to this idea of accessibility. According to Poag and McEwen, the original lifestyle center design was based on the strip center. But instead of featuring a simple strip, they decided to stretch out the design and bend it to make a “U” shape. This allowed access to all storefronts, so instead of parking at one end and walking all the way down the strip, a shopper could park directly in front of the store he or she wanted to visit.

“Shoppers love lifestyle centers because of the convenience of finding the target store from their car,” says Poag. “We found that the alternative was to wade through a sea of parking as all traffic in a mall is funneled to a handful of entrances. Then the consumer has to navigate through crowds of people ‘hanging out.’ She then has to find a directory to locate her store, walk down the mall and finally arrive at the store she was originally targeting. This is not a simple task, especially if she has a baby in tow.”

The original design principles that focused on convenience and safety are still used today, but the design and placement of the lifestyle center is certainly evolving. What started out as a simple desire for a unique place to shop has expanded and adapted, giving lifestyle centers the opportunity to join new and fresh development concepts.

“Originally lifestyle centers were shaped like a ‘U’ or a crescent shape,” says McEwen. “Over time the centers got bigger and bigger to the point where the crescent shape became inconvenient. So we started the Main Street concept, where we had the rows of shops facing each other. We still provided plenty of parking in front of the stores, which is one of the things that the customers really liked about lifestyle centers.”

The Main Street design also allows the lifestyle center to adapt to a wider variety of property shapes and sizes. Previously they sat as solitary developments, drawing in people who were frustrated with their current shopping choices. With this design concept, however, the centers are able to be part of master-planned and mixed-use communities. Poag and McEwen came to realize that the old methods of developing a retail box — while hoping that someone next door developed something complementary — were quickly becoming obsolete.  Development now needs to be integrated into the community and the lifestyle center becomes much more of a focal point and gathering space for the community, rather than simply a shopping destination. Now people are able to work and live next door to, or even on top of, the already convenient lifestyle centers.

The shoppers are not the only ones that are benefiting from this concept. Retailers are also finding that lifestyle centers are a smart way to find a solid consumer base and make a profit.

“Lifestyle centers are good for retailers because they are consumer-driven,” says McEwen. “It starts there. The customers love the concept, and if she loves the concept, she frequents it more often and she spends more money per visit than she does at malls. Therefore the retailers love it because their sales are higher and their expenses are less than they are at malls. In addition, many find that they are reaching a customer that they could not reach at the mall, so for them, it is finding a whole new demographic base and whole new profit centers.”

Comparing Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Centers’ The Shops of Saddle Creek to one of the company’s newer projects is a great way to see how far lifestyle centers have come from their beginnings in the 1980s. The Shops of Saddle Creek, which opened in 1987, will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. This alone is a testament to how successful lifestyle centers are, and have been throughout the past 20 years. According to McEwen, the first phase of The Shops of Saddle Creek spanned only 84,000 square feet, and while it did expand to 142,000 square feet, it still is one of the smaller projects in the Poag & McEwen portfolio.

The Promenade Shops at Saucon Valley in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, is a 473,000-square-foot lifestyle center that offers numerous specialty retail, restaurant and entertainment opportunities. The development is part of The Stabler Center, a 1,700-acre master-planned community.

The Promenade Shops at Saucon Valley in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, which opened in late October 2006, is a good representation of where the lifestyle design is heading. The 473,000-square-foot development is part of The Stabler Center, a 1,700-acre master-planned community that features 600 acres of office development, a residential component, and is in close proximity to the 300-room Saucon Creek Resort & Conference Center and the Saucon Valley Country Club. The Shops at Saucon Valley also offers a solid tenant line-up including Barnes & Noble, The Fresh Market, L.L. Bean and a RAVE Theater, as well as several other specialty retail, restaurant and entertainment opportunities.

The company is not just involved in the eastern United States either. Projects from California to Colorado to Connecticut are all within the company’s reach. The Promenade Shops at Centerra in Loveland, Colorado, is another good example of what Poag & McEwen is involved with these days. The approximately 678,000-square-foot development, which features the Main Street design, includes a strong retailer list and unique amenities. Tenants for the center include American Eagle Outfitters, Macy’s, Banana Republic, Victoria’s Secret, Chico’s, Coldwater Creek, Ann Taylor Loft, Starbucks Coffee and Jos. A. Bank. In the core of the project is a central plaza, which serves as an ice skating rink in the winter and an amphitheater in the summer. Also featured at The Promenade Shops at Centerra are waterfalls, a fire pit and a pop-up jet fountain.

The Promenade Shops at Centerra in Loveland, Colorado, spans 678,000 square feet and features the Main Street design.

“Poag & McEwen wants to create a place that reflects the community in which it is located,” says Poag. “Our design is not about branding Poag & McEwen but about creating an environment that is about the community. We also attempt to bring successful, local retailers to the location to continue that effort to engage the community.”

Also on the radar for Poag & McEwen is Highland Row, a new mixed-use center located just south of Poplar Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, near the University of Memphis campus. The development will feature a variety of retail opportunities along with a unique residential component. Building on the principles used since the early days of lifestyle centers, Highland Row will offer a sense of place and security for the greater Memphis area, while creating a new type of environment that has not been developed in Memphis since the early 1900s. The project is scheduled for a fall 2008 grand opening.

Highland Row, a new mixed-use center located near the University of Memphis campus in Memphis, Tennessee, will open in fall 2008.

There is something else about Poag & McEwen that makes it unique from other development companies attempting to create this kind of feel in a retail shopping experience. Not only does Poag & McEwen create quality shopping opportunities and memorable destinations, but the company also gets involved with the community — something that is surely rare these days.

“Poag & McEwen is a good, corporate citizen,” says Poag. “We are strong supporters of local charities. We financially support those charities that are important to the customers who shop with us, and we strongly encourage our on-site staff to contribute time to the communities that we call home. Poag & McEwen frequently becomes the centerpiece of a community’s identity, offering the quality image that becomes that community’s signature. We also work with surrounding landowners to maximize their potential, whether that is a church implementing an after school program, or helping a residential developer to better lay out their site and get their approvals. The better the area, the better the image of the center will be.”

With the experience and success of creating quality destinations for consumers, it is no surprise that Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Centers continues to lead the trends for retail development. And with six new projects and four expansions on the horizon, the company shows no signs of slowing.