The Evolution Of The Lifestyle Center
As developers continue to build lifestyle centers, their design is evolving.
Jeff Gill

Aliso Viejo Town Center is an example of a hybrid lifestyle/power center.

Everyone has a definition for their understanding of a Lifestyle Center, allowing architects and designers the opportunity to create a myriad of possible solutions. The common thread from this broadly defined retail environment stems from our enthusiasm to create comfort zones and personal identities within our expanding communities. Through the design of main streets, plazas and mixed-use environments, planned to fit a variety of neighborhood parameters, we are allowed the creativity to think out of the typical ‘retail box.’ Quite often, the specialty retailers are the perfect fit to create a sense of communal balance given their flexible space and ease of compatibility, further allowing us to respond to the needs of the user for the creation of a better lifestyle.

The concept of a lifestyle center is not a new thought process. When the strip center was in its heyday, designers were creating unique ‘Country Club’ projects as a reaction to the sterile environment of the flat façade retail design. These new shopping districts minimized building footprints, often creating four-sided accessibility that forced shoppers to park, walk, and explore. Retail centers such as Fig Garden in Fresno, California, are excellent examples of the early lifestyle center. By combining multi-level office with retail to create a mixed-use environment; multi building footprints to force pedestrian use; and wide sidewalks, usually covered with landscape zones to create outdoor usage by eateries, designers created the foundation for what we now see in our mega lifestyle projects such as Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga, California, or The Grove at Farmers Market in Los Angeles. These projects utilize public squares and inviting retail streets to encourage exploration and relaxation. The idea of retail design was morphing into a concept of an all day adventure.

The 1990s saw further development of these specialty centers. As the power center replaced the strip center and introduced an alternative to the enclosed mall, the need for community space was still a prevalent issue. Retailers grew to sizes that mandated large parking fields and maximum signage visibility. Yet cities began to react to the lack of personal space. Essentially, the early development of the power center was nothing more than the sterile strip design at a grander scale. Lacking common areas, communities voiced their concerns for public space as the center of their retail lifestyle. Through this marriage of big box retail and public outcry for community centers, architects and designers began to think out of the box and began creating unique retail environments. Metro Pointe in Costa Mesa, California, and Aliso Viejo Town Center in Aliso Viejo, California, are early examples of a hybrid lifestyle/power center. By attaching a pedestrian retail community with its restaurants, entertainment and unique retailers to a big box power center and commercial office complex, MCG was able to meet the needs of both the retailer and public offering a unique mixture of amenities and specialty usage. With its responsive design to multiple uses, Metro Pointe was a precursor to the lifestyle center we now experience.

Aliso Viejo Town Center, Aliso Viejo, California.

Intimacy has continued to act as a major theme in our retail environments. It is now common practice for retail centers to offer public plazas often mandated by jurisdictions and clients alike. This thought is most prevalent in lifestyle centers, where large public plazas are supported by smaller intimate zones utilizing living rooms, dining, and gardens as natural amenities to the mix of retailers. These multi public uses allow for uniqueness within how we shop and relax and vary per the needs of a specific community. Shoppers can spend time people watching in large plazas or gather for a more intimate conversation or perform business on laptops in private outdoor quarters. Today’s lifestyle center combines the thought process behind our European cities with their public main squares with the requirements of today’s hectic lifestyle. The incorporation of these personalized amenities are now going mainstream as we experience quiet zones in neighborhood centers and the creation of living rooms in our malls.

So where are we headed? With PDAs and wireless connections we have limited downtime to relax and get outside to enjoy our environment. Through the combination of retail, office and housing, the new lifestyle center truly becomes the community center. Quite often one can see business activities during the workday performed outdoors as a way to stay connected but get out of our walled-in environments. Lifestyle centers will continue to reinforce the thought of public space in a retail environment to meet the demands of today’s business and social activities, allowing architects and designers to push the envelope for unique opportunities as a response to communal gathering. Our sensitivity to changing environmental attitudes will require more green space and better sustainable design as we think towards protecting our natural resources. Additionally, architects and designers will continue to address land constraints in our growing suburban centers. Mixed-use environs previously only seen in our urban core will continue to be looked to as an alternative in suburbia. As we satisfy the needs of the major retailers, we will become increasingly aware of how we respond to diversity in modes of public transportation and requirements for affordable housing.

There are many terminologies for a lifestyle center. However the foundation of all lifestyle design is to create an environment that encourages multi activities to respond to a particular community’s needs. No matter where we create these unique environs, we will continue to develop land that responds to public needs and environmental sensitivity. No better retail opportunities exist for this forward thinking approach than in our response to supporting a lifestyle.

Jeff Gill is vice president of MCG Architecture, based in the firm’s Irvine, California, office.


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