The Evolution of Design
Shopping Center Business shows how far the retail design industry has come —and where it's going in the future.
Luci Cason

Creating A Sense Of Place

Architects must confront a seemingly endless list of considerations when designing a retail center — traffic patterns, zoning, building codes and so forth. But, perhaps the most important thing architects must consider when designing a center is its so-called “sense of place.” In the past, developers built fairly one-dimensional shopping centers and this is what shoppers came to expect. Now, however, retail developers and architects are increasingly “theming” their developments in an effort to give their centers the much-talked-about — but very elusive — quality of cohesiveness.

GSBS is currently designing the mixed-use South Shore in League City, Texas. The project is about 1,000 yards from the coast.

Retail architects may base their vision of this sense of community on a variety of different factors, including the development area's history or architectural context. In this way, location can mean everything in determining the theme of a retail center. For example, says Branko Prebanda of Perkowitz + Ruth Architects, in the Northeast, architecture is more colonially inspired and brick is the common material while Southwest projects utilize more plaster and many tend to be influenced by Spanish and Mediterranean architectural styles.

“Depending on where the project is located, there may be a particular story that resonates with the community that is a natural thing to play upon in reinterpreting that site as a retail center,” says Jeff Gunning, vice president of RTKL.

RTKL's design of the La Isla Acapulco, a retail and entertainment center in Mexico, incorporated a water canal.

Other architects are also using developments' physical locations as a cue for developing their sense of place.

GSBS is currently designing the mixed-use South Shore in League City, Texas. The project is about 1,000 yards from the coast and is being designed with a boardwalk/waterfront theme complete with lagoon and lighthouse.

CMH Architects' The Avenue Carriage Crossing is scheduled to open this fall near Memphis, Tennessee.

Carter & Burgess' design of Bozeman Gateway, a 73-acre mixed-use project near the city center of ski resort town Bozeman, Montana, will incorporate three existing streams and real wood buildings with copper roofs reminiscent of ski lodges. Taking a cue from name, rather than place, Carter & Burgess' design of the renovation and expansion of Prime Retail's Prime Outlets San Marcos in Texas will incorporate a Venetian theme, recalling the city's Piazza San Marco. The redesign will also fittingly feature a canal.

Despite the desire to theme projects, retail architects are quick to point out that a sense of place does not necessarily mean that every center's design should be the equivalent of a theme park.

“It's really easy to develop a main street and come up with false façades. But we think the customer is going to get tired of that quickly,” says Tom Porter of Atlanta-based Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates. “We need to have that authenticity to keep the customer coming back.”

Gunning agrees. “Vegas is great, but you can't do Vegas everywhere. Sometimes the story of a project may be subtler. It may be paying homage to the history of a place rather than making it a highly-themed environment.”

A retail development's sense of place can also be formulated by considering the needs of its target demographic. Navid Maqami, vice president of architecture for Greenberg Farrow, says that knowledge of the area's market trends, cultural influences, local shopping habits and entertainment practices are critical in the design stage.

Notes Porter: “We always start with a demographic market analysis to give us a feel for who the real customer is. Because that's what the design should be all about.”

“People are very selective about where and how they spend their money and are drawn to environments that are branded and specifically targeted to them,” notes Timothy O'Brien, director of retail design for Charlotte-based Little Diversified Architectural Consulting. “Say we have a project that has been targeted towards the 30-to 40-year-old urban professional female. We would work to respond to that demographic in subtle and not so subtle ways, with everything from the tenant mix to the architectural detailing, to really try and maximize potential for that demographic.”

Little's design of Morrison Place in Charlotte, North Carolina, includes traditional European-inspired architecture.

Overseas Innovations

For retail architects who are designing overseas developments, creating a sense of place becomes even more of a challenge, considering the differing demands of foreign developers and shoppers from those in the U.S.

In Asia, for example, population densities require many retail centers to include multiple levels.

RTKL designed this mixed-use development, City Crossing, in China. It contains six stories of retail.

Similarly, in Istanbul, Development Design Group is designing Istinye Park, a 3.5-level shopping center with four levels below that.

Development Design Group is designing Istinye Park shopping center in Istanbul.

But, if international design is lagging behind the U.S. with regards to proliferating open-air centers, it is innovating in other ways by showcasing creative uses.

“In many of our projects outside the U.S., the big department store anchors just don't exist,” says Gunning. “So, there are other ways of anchoring those projects with clusters of tenants, or mass transit or park space.”

“Developers outside of North America typically don't have access to the vast number of merchants and tenants that we have here in the States. The net result is, if they want to build a larger project, they're bringing in more innovative uses,” says Higgs, noting that many U.S.-based developers are more willing to take risks with their shopping center designs when developing overseas. “They are ending up with developments that are, in some ways, ahead of where we are today in the U.S.,” he says of foreign retail centers. “We've become a little too formula focused.”

Changing Formulas

While overseas retail developments may be considered more progressive than their stateside counterparts, that doesn't mean that retail development in the U.S. is stagnant by any means. Although terms like open-air, main street, town center, mixed-use, lifestyle and hybrid have been bandied about, perhaps excessively, over the past several years in the shopping center industry, architects agree that their use signals an unstoppable trend in retail design toward centers that go beyond the traditional power center, regional mall or strip.

“More and more, developers are looking for design concepts that go beyond the basic utilitarian, arrangement of boxes on a flat site,” says Maqami.

“From a retail development standpoint, we are certainly living interesting times,” says Higgs. “I see it as a wonderful opportunity to push the envelope a bit.”

“Conventional retailing is not as abundant as it used to be. The slam-dunk opportunities don't really exist anymore,” says Cupkovic. “The hybrid project, a project that's unique and that you've never seen before, is the norm now.”

RTKL's Legacy Town Center is a 150-acre mixed-use town center in Plano, Texas.

“If we create an environment where people go to shop, then we have not succeeded,” notes Alex Espinosa, a partner with Dorsky Hodgson. “We want to create environments where people go because there is more than shopping.”

“We try to provide every reason that we can for a customer to stay at a site as long as possible,” say Greg Moe of Salt Lake City- and Fort Worth-based GSBS.

Perhaps the best way to ensure that shoppers stay at a center is to have them live there, and many architects are incorporating residential components into their designs as developers, shoppers and communities clamor for new projects that include other uses besides retail.

For example, RTKL designed Legacy Town Center in Plano, Texas, as a place for the 36,000 employees of the adjacent Legacy Business Park to live, eat and be entertained. The 150-acre mixed-use town center employs a pedestrian-friendly environment that includes ground-level shops and restaurants below residential housing units.

Dorsky Hodgson's design of Southpointe II in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, includes a 450,000-square-foot open-air lifestyle center.

KA Architecture is designing Annapolis Town Center at Parole in Maryland, which will include condominium and apartment space over retail on 36 acres of land.

Perkowitz + Ruth is designing both renovations and new construction for Vallco Fashion Park & Entertainment Center in Cupertino, California. New construction includes a new mixed-use development that houses 204 apartments above several anchor tenants, a sidewalk café, street-front retail and a specialty grocer.

TVS is designing Branson Landing in Branson, Missouri. The mixed-use development will be located along the city's downtown waterfront.

Due to this demand for live-work-play environments, “we are seeing developers who 5 years ago would have laughed at you if you talked about mixed-use, becoming advocates of mixed-use type projects,” says Everett Hatcher, executive vice president of Birmingham, Alabama-based Crawford-McWilliams-Hatcher.

“Retail main streets with big boxes and residential above is what's real today,” says Cupkovic. “What developers are looking for is architects who understand residential and how it integrates with retail.”

Cupkovic Architecture is currently designing SODO in Orlando, Florida, with over 375,000 square feet of retail space and 300 residential units.

“It's about creating a community,” says Brett Kratzer, principal of Dorsky Hodgson's commercial studio, of the trend toward pairing residential with retail. “It becomes more of a place to be, rather than just a place to shop.”

In this vein, developers are increasing their landscaping budgets and many architects are designing centers that incorporate civic and gathering spaces with landscaping that draws customers in and makes them want to stay a while.

TVS is designing the Promenade Shops at Shadow Creek, an 800,000-square-foot lifestyle center in Pearland, Texas.

Perkowitz + Ruth's design of Bella Terra, a 975,000-square-foot mixed-use redevelopment of a Huntington Beach, California, mall that is themed after an Italian hill town, will include a large civic space complete with a Greco-Roman amphitheater.

“Environmental graphics and landscaping are coming back to the forefront in the eyes of developers,” says Frankie Campione, principal of New York-based CREATE Architecture & Planning.

“The buildings themselves are less important than the places and spaces between the buildings,” notes Higgs. “If you're in a great plaza or well landscaped space, I think one responds and it sort of keys you up for an experience.”

Perkowitz + Ruth is handling the redesign of Vallco Fashion Park & Entertainment Center in Cupertino, California.

“The word is increased density,” says Higgs. “Smart growth and density is where we're all headed. And it's got to be that way because we simply can't afford to keep chewing up all this land. We've been saying for a number of years that a conventional shopping center is under-developed property,” he says. “You spend all that money on infrastructure and you have a one-level or two-level center and you're nowhere near the height limits you can build on that site. So, there's all this potential above the project that you're not exploiting.”

“As project sites become scarce, we are seeing the development of sites that are both costly and irregular,” notes Maqami. “The traditional strip shopping center is a fading trend, and vertical, multi-level centers and multi-use centers are becoming more popular. To increase the financial return on a project, developers are interested in fitting as many tenants or uses into a project without sacrificing on the environmental aspects of their project.”

Greenberg Farrow is designing East River Plaza, a vertical power center in East Harlem, New York.

Perkowitz + Ruth is designing Midtown Plaza in Los Angeles as a multi-level, urban core development. The 11-acre project, situated on an under-utilized grayfield location, will include 350,000 square feet of retail. The site presents a number of challenges, including difficult rectangular shape, substantial slopes and significant underground utilities that must be considered in the design.

Perkowitz + Ruth is designing Midtown Plaza in Los Angeles as a multi-level, urban core development. The 11-acre project, situated on an under-utilized grayfield location, will include 350,000 square feet of retail.

“The bench, the flower pot, the sidewalk, the light pole — they speak to people in terms of, ‘Yeah this place feels right; I want to be here for a longer period of time,'” says Espinosa.

Jim Heller, president of Cleveland-based KA Architecture, notes that architects and developers are paying more attention to previously sometimes overlooked items, such as furniture amenities and pedestrian kiosks. “All these elements that become part of the ambience that is created within these areas,” he says.

“The retail marketplace is a theater, and all of the elements must work together to produce the show,” says O'Brien. “The scenery, the cast, the props, the music, the lighting and all the details need to come together to support the retail activity.”

Out With The Old

While many developers are creating new retail centers with innovative uses, just as many are looking to reposition older centers to keep pace with the newest trends in retail design. One of the biggest trends in redevelopment right now is the addition of open-air components to enclosed centers.

“The biggest trick is to meld the indoor/outdoor experience so that it's seamless and the customer feels comfortable in both areas and doesn't feel like they are going to a totally different project by going through the doors to go outside,” says Porter of Thompson Ventulett Stainback, which is designing a renovation and addition to Cumberland Mall in Atlanta. A lifestyle center that features specialty restaurants and retail will be added to the front of the enclosed center, originally built in the 1970s. TVS also recently designed a new image for Colonial Mall Myrtle Beach in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, helping it attract a new anchor.

Carter & Burgess is currently designing the redevelopment of Assembly Square Mall in Somerville, Massachusetts.

In Fresno, California, Architects Orange is taking the existing Fig Leaf Gardens and designing its conversion into a lifestyle center with new tenants and added square footage.

KA Architecture designed a now-complete addition to Eastview Mall in Rochester, New York, adding an outdoor component of about 70,000 square feet and remodeling some of the mall's interior. KA is currently designing a transformation for Brookfield Square in Brookfield, Wisconsin, from an indoor to a partially outdoor center.

“The projects that can offer the convenience of the enclosed mall combined with an open-air shopping experience are capturing the best of both worlds and creating an environment that people will be drawn to for multiple reasons,” says Gunning.

However, repositioning or expanding an existing property presents a set of challenges, including working with tenants already in place in a center.

“We're reviewing things such as option cycles, when the tenants can move in and out of spaces and reconfiguring spaces. It's sort of like doing a renovation on the home while the family is still living in it,” says O'Brien of Little Diversified, which is currently repositioning The Avenue Shops in Fort Myers, Florida.

Architects designing for an existing center must also work with and around already in-place infrastructures, which may be faulty or outdated.

“When an architect is faced with a rehabilitation, you have to thoroughly investigate the existing structure,” says Maqami of Greenberg Farrow, which designed a conversion and expansion for New York's Queens Place, which was originally intended for single use, into a vertical power center accommodating multiple tenants.

Deciding on a new theme for an existing center can also be more difficult than simply creating one for a new center.

“You have to understand the emotions of the center's owner or developer,” says Campione of designing redevelopments. “Why are they renovating? Has the center lost its place in the market? The questions on a renovation project are endless and you have to put the architecture aside for the first few meetings until you understand why the project has been selected for an upgrade.”

“The new is going to have to work well with the existing,” notes Espinosa. “Because the last thing you want to do is create a new center that's going to end up hurting existing tenants. You want something that's going to positively enhance — rather than compete with what already exists.”

The Future Of Retail Design

With so many new and innovative designs, what could the future possibly hold for retail architecture? Well, nobody knows for sure, but designs are sure to change in a natural progression along with the needs and wants of the retail shopper and developer.

“These uses can't force themselves on us,” notes Higgs. “They are only there because of the market — someone's willing to pay. You can't legislate or zone these kinds of things. It happens. It's evolutionary in nature.”

“What's interesting is that with all the new projects that focus on mixed-use and open-air expansion, the closed regional mall is still the dominant engine for retail sales in the U.S.,” notes Gunning. “So, the mall is not dead at all. It's just morphing into something better and more varied than it once was.”

Who knows — the shopping center of the future may even look a little like something from the past.

“What I find amusing with these lifestyle centers and hybrids is that our grandfathers, if you will, started with those in the 1950s and our retail fathers started putting covers on them in the early 1970s,” says Campione. “It all comes around, doesn't it?”

MCG'S STRENGTH WITH EXPERIENCE Larkridge, Thornton, Colorado. With nationwide offices, Pasadena, California-based MCG Architecture is able to successfully adapt projects to divergent demographics while meeting client expectations. Offering architectural, planning and interior design experience, MCG prides itself on its ability to adapt various types of centers and mixed-use destinations to a particular site, no matter what the demographics, site constraints and governing entitlements may require. Prairie Center, Brighton, Colorado. “Our Denver office has focused on large lifestyle and power centers as that region responds to the expanding needs of its growth patterns,” says MCG Principal Jeff Gill. Projects such as Larkridge in Thornton, Colorado — the first phase of which will include a power center on 124 acres — and Prairie Center in Brighton, Colorado, with an outdoor village concept and inline tenants, “are a great example of our response to a changing semi urban demographic,” says Gill. “In Southern California, we continue to see new communities in the Palm Springs area where the flare for design relates to a certain desert style,” continues Gill. “In the beach areas of Southern California, projects have been designed in direct response to the changing demographics of our oceanfront communities where home prices have sailed and new owners demand a certain quality of tenant mix and architecture to suit their needs and lifestyle.” Monarch Bay Plaza, Dana Point, California. In Dana Point, California, when Monarch Bay Plaza underwent a renovation and expansion, MCG designed the exterior of the center's new Gelson's Market with a Tuscan-style palette and a 35-foot tall entry tower. Having designed everything from vertical mixed-use projects in urban areas to neighborhood, power, lifestyle and regional centers in both urban and suburban communities, MCG's strength is in its longevity, says Gill. “Our design concepts arise from our years of experience in geographic regions and an understanding of the marketplace. Climatic factors, localized industry beliefs and demographic needs are easily understood given our history of experience.” — Luci Cason

CREATE: THE DEVELOPER'S ARCHITECT CREATE is renovating Capital City Mall in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. New York-based CREATE Architecture Planning & Design was dubbed by one of its clients as “the developer's architect” — and with good reason. “Since we work with REITs and national developers, we are not governed by tenant prototypes. We surround ourselves first with the developer's desires and aspirations,” says CREATE Principal Frankie Campione. “If it's an existing center, we listen to their stories and history and gain knowledge of the property. If it's a new ground-up project, we understand the goals of the development.” CREATE designs retail projects including power centers and mall renovations and expansions throughout the East and Midwest. Currently, over 85 percent of CREATE's work involves retail in one form or another. Danbury Fair Mall in Danbury, Connecticut. CREATE is renovating the Lord & Taylor courtyard. CREATE is currently renovating and expanding Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News, Virginia; Capital City Mall in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania; and Danbury Fair mall in Danbury, Connecticut. CREATE is also in the process of designing two new centers — Layfayette Pavilions and Silver Spring Square. Each of CREATE's projects are designed with the respective developer's individual needs in mind, but the firm also considers the wants of the ultimate customer — the shopper — as well. “If we are working on an existing center, we talk to the shoppers without identifying who we are. They will tell you their likes, dislikes and what stores they want,” says Campione of CREATE's quest to find out what design will make a retail center “work” for its shoppers. “At CREATE, the philosophy of our retail isn't so much to be ‘looked at' but to be immersed.” — Luci Cason