My guess is that you are right. Metro Toledo sounds a lot like metro Buffalo, only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.Originally posted by Bear Up North
My guess is that you are right. Metro Toledo sounds a lot like metro Buffalo, only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
I find this discussion interesting because so much is dependent on local and regional economic and demographic conditions. My personal experience is with two metro areas: San Jose and Boston (so CJC and JMello help me out if I get something wrong).
San Jose continues to grow, mostly by becoming more dense. The malls there are slowly expanding (sometimes by new malls built next door such as Santana Row across from valley fair) or by new lifestyle centers on former industrial properties (The Plant on the old GE site, the Loews on the old IBM site). Even the low income areas tend to be well served by major chain stores, Target, though not upscale department stores.
The Boston metro area is slowly growing. The urban core has a pretty thriving retail scebe, though the recession has hit here too. There are plans for new retail n the South Boston waterfront but there is debate about whether it will succeed. There have been two lifestyle-like centers just opened, Patriot Place and Dedham Place. The Boston Globe says Dedham has been successfl, Patriot Place less so despite a Bass store. The mall in trouble is the Westgate Mall in Brocton, an increasingly poor community - poor people priced out of Boston move there.. The other regional malls are fine
so this is what i learned:
Downtown street retail shopping-usually in urban areas
Super regional and regional malls-usually in suburban/residential areas
lifestyle centers-usually in wealthy suburban/residential areas.
convenience/strip centers
neighborhood centers
community centers
power centers
(found in suburban/residential areas)
theme/festival centers
outlet centers
airport retail
(found in tourist areas)
types of communities-California:
~cities/towns
~un-incorporated communities
types of communities-New York
~cities
~townships
~villages
suburb: a mostly residential part of a big city or a mostly residential urban cluster or urbanized area city near a bigger urbanized area city
Looks like you discovered the solution, urban19.
Write it up.
A nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong place — like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard.
Site selection is rarely a simple process, and even when it is, it still may not make sense or fit into what seems to be the one-size-fits-all solution you are looking for. They will vary, even by type. Some companies have very strict rules about what they need to locate a site. They will get so specific as to say it must be located on the right hand drive side for a.m. commuters, in a population of at least 30k people within a 15 mile radius, of which at least 80% earn above some pre-determined salary. Others use just a population threshold. In a location analysis class I once took in grad school, I did an exercise to find how many companies publicly disclosed their criteria. About half do, and many are straight-forward formulas. I never understood that. Keep in mind also that many of the larger corporations (think WalMart, Home Depot, Lowes) have departments with in-house staff dedicated just to site and location analysis.
I was just looking at the numbers ICSC has for how many malls, lifestyle centers, and power centers are out there:
The numbers roughly look like this:
~2,053 power centers
~1,579 (regional and super regional malls combined)
~406 lifestyle centers
~380 outlet centers
Outlet centers and regional malls are rarely being built these days. The oldest malls in the USA are going under. Mostly, malls in suburban areas surrounded by rural areas are going under.
In California, there are many malls not doing good. Small and mid-sized cities that have hurting malls are: Eureka, Woodland, Bakersfield, etc...
When malls fall to two anchors, and are left to one anchor they usually don't recover.
It will be interesting to see as time progresses to see how malls survive through this century. The USA's economy is changing, and more people are turning to power centers. I am not even sure we will see more lifestyle centers being built. The malls that are living I believe are living because they are in areas with harsh weather condition where they are needed.
In WNY and NW PA, the trend seems to be more towards the old fashioned shopping center anchored by one or more large big boxes -- or bunch of medium boxes and one big box. I sure wouldn't call those "lifestyle centers". I've seen this in suburban Erie, PA, in the Buffalo suburbs, and even within the city of Buffalo itself where old industrial sites in North Buffalo are being redeveloped into shopping areas.
Enclosed mall vs strip mall/shopping center doesn't have much to do with the weather. In the Erie area, the Summit Mall has added a bunch of satellite stores/restaurants around the periphery of the parking lots. This has also been done at the McKinley Mall in Hamburg, NY outside of Buffalo. You can now "go" to either of these malls, shop and dine, and yet never actually step inside the enclosed mall itself. The Chautauqua Mall, which is very small, also has a few stores that are only accessible from outside as well as a couple of satellite stores/restaurants.
I'm not much of a mall person so I'm no expert on them. I go maybe three times a year whether I need to or not.
I didn't see this discussed anywhere (may have missed it by scrolling through) but the traditional regional mall is a dinosaur in today's economy. For about 10 years now, people are now shopping in the big discount department stores (Target, Walmart, etc), the big warehouse stores (Costco and Sam's Club) and the mid size box speciality retailers (Best Buy, Bed, Bath and Beyond, etc). These stores provide pricing advantages that are impossible in the high square foot costs of the regional malls. The major department stores located in malls are struggling as families (other than teens looking to hang out) no long shop in malls nearly as much as before. Online purchasing has also taken a small bite out of the regional malls.
The only type of regional mall size building I see going on in the future are factory store malls like the "Mills" malls. Again, families are looking more for competitive prices than the appeal of the old regional mall and its department stores.
Lifestyle centers are smaller and tend to be oriented toward the well heeled, under 40 crowd with national chain fashion retailers, megaplexs and trendy restaurants. These can be located on smaller acreages and can be part of a mixed use complex with offices and high density residential. They tend to be designed to better blend in with the neighborhoods they serve and are not surrounding by acres and acres of parking.
Yes and no. Development of new traditional, enclosed malls all but ceased long before the recession. You are absolutely right in saying that people no longer shop at the department stores. Look at how the industry has consolidated, or look at the sata which show the growth of discount stores, supercenters, and warehouse clubs largely at their expense. On the other hand, there has continued to be growth in the small specialty shops that fill the hallways between the (now empty) anchor stores. Lifestyle centers and the other mall alterations that call themselves lifestyle centers are an attempt to create a new form of venue that features these retailers, as the old malls usually featured their department stores. When everyone has a Macy's, Penneys, and Sears for an anchor, stores like Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, and Apple Store, which may have just one or two stores in a market, become essential to differentiating the center and increasing its drawing power. The lifestyle format helps to attract these tenants and may also reinforce the image of being different (upscale) from the old mall.
As for outlet centers, there is likely to be some growth in the format, but it will not be substantial. Most of the viable markets have already been developed and there are not that many true "outlet" retailers.
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Are big regional shopping malls with department store anchors going to eventually go the way of downtown shopping districts in most cities because of the gradual decline of department stores?
While the growth of suburbs helped kill off downtown shopping districts, so did employment and life-style changes.
- Downtown offices are now staffed by a small percentage of the workers who previously did the same amount of work (the 10 "girl" typing "pool" has been replaced by 1 admin assistant using Microsoft Office), meaning that there's considerably less foot traffic.
- Most married women and most women with children now work outside the home, so "recreational shopping" and "lunch with the girls" hasn't been as feasible for most women since the 1970s as it was in the 1950s.
Changes that might endanger department stores include
- Less disposable income as incomes don't keep pace with student loans and/or housing costs for younger people.
- People who do have money to spend may buy less of what department stores sell and more of what specalty stores sell.
- Growth of on-line shopping.
You pretty much nailed it. Look at where the retail growth has been and it is in a) discount stores, b) specialty stores like Old Navy and World Market, and c) online shopping sites. The estimate I have heard is that about one in ten jobs is in a downtown district. The average duration of shopping trips and number of stores visited has been trending downward. I don't think it will result in the total elimination of enclosed malls, though. Especially in cold and snowy climates, they still offer some benefits. More likely, we will see continued evolution, more hybrid approaches, and a shift from traditional anchors.
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I too agree with Linda's post. I would like to add however that today's department stores are really kind of poorly run when you look at what they used to be. I am a tall man, when I was younger I could buy clothes with little difficulty at department stores. Over the years this has become less available because most stores to not want to be stuck with a bunch of sizes that they may have to sell at a discount. In short service and selection has decreased tremendously at the stores in favor of short term gains. If you get the same level of customer service at Kmart that you do at Macy's, it pretty much puts Macy's at a competitive disadvantage because of the mall rent factor.
It is to the point where the only department store I can find clothes in with regularity is Dillards, I have to leave the state and go to Toledo to find one! With the exception of Dillards, the big and tall sections of most department stores only carry stuff with 60 inch waists and 29 inch inseams.
In fact Linda's post can be expanded to another topic of automation's impact on employment. This is seen in the large industrial cities of the great lakes. At one time they may have a Ford plant that employed 50,000 people working on 3 shifts. A plant with the same level of production today might have 3,000 employees working two shifts. It can be related to how foot traffic has died in central cities, but this is more of an impact at a regional level. The less folks working means less money flowing in the local economy and results in lower personal income.
We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes - Fr Gabriel Richard 1805
So lifestyle centers are being built? I am wondering if my area will get a lifestyle center after we get Costco. BTW, are there alot of areas with just Costco, target, walmart, and have no mall or lifestyle centers and no outlet centers? like counties with a costco, and no malls or lifestyle centers?
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