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TURTLE CREEK SOLE U.S. ENCLOSED MALL TO OPEN DURING ’06

By Donna Mitchell

Anyone concluding that there is nowhere else to build an enclosed mall in the U.S. these days might just want to have a chat with David Hocker & Associates and MBC Holdings. In March they will be unveiling The Mall at Turtle Creek, Jonesboro, Ark., which, according to the developer, is the only enclosed mall slated to open in the country this year. Anchor stores Target and JCPenney opened last October.

Furthermore, if the shopping mall industry is anything as Darwinian as its close cousin, retailing, then Mall at Turtle Creek might represent a move toward the perfection of the hybrid species, the developers say. For all the past headaches that hybrid centers have presented to shopping center developers, David Hocker & Associates and MBC say they are confident they have successfully combined the novelty of an open-air center with the dependable advantages of an enclosed mall.

Of course, it helps that the site is in a primary trade area with a population slightly over 350,000 and that Mall at Turtle Creek is the only significant shopping center within 120 miles. All of this helped entice some anchor tenants and key in-line retailers to the shopping center.

The mall’s enclosed portion contains 230,000 square feet of retail, and the outdoor portion offers 75,000 square feet of store space in a Main Street setting.

Enclosed centers hold a lot of advantages over their open-air cousins, despite the shopping center industry’s current preoccupation with open-air and mixed-use centers. First, there is temperature, of course. Landlords can control the interior climate, making for comfortable shopping any time of year, anywhere. Also, stores in an enclosed center get more exposure to consumers, sources say, because patrons must walk past them to get to their destinations.

“You have all the stores you want in a totally captive environment,” said Ian Thomas, chairman of Ian Thomas Consultants, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based retail development consulting firm. “There are no distractions. It is like going to the casino. It is a captive environment, and it is up to the developer to round out the appeal and extend the visitation time and at the same time make sure the cash registers never stop ringing. That is what made malls great.”

In open-air centers, especially lifestyle centers that allow curbside parking, consumers cherry-pick the stores they want to patronize and can make quick escapes, Turtle Creek’s developers say.

Even at top-flight open-air centers, traffic drops off when it snows, says James Harkin, a principal at LuskHarkin, a Columbus, Ohio-based architectural and planning firm that has worked on several hybrid projects, though not Mall at Turtle Creek.

Creating an attractive atmosphere does not stop at sheltering people from the cold and rain, though, says Harkin, who is currently transforming Jackson Mall, in Dayton, Ohio, into the Dayton Town and Country.

Developers are putting more effort into interior design, with such touches as exotic plants or overstuffed leather chairs.

“What we are seeing more and more are better spaces and designs,” Harkin said. “Enclosed malls can even hold community events.”

Jackson Mall was built in the 1970s. Like other enclosed malls, it had huge corridors and no central space, features that gave these shopping centers a reputation for being claustrophobic and drab, says Harkin. The idea back then was to cram as much gross leasable space as possible into the center.

The new incarnation, Dayton Town and Country, will replace the elongated corridor with an oval floor plan that will serve as a staging area for performances, community events and a meeting place, says Harkin.

There is also a curving clerestory from one end of the mall to the other and a roof 30 feet above the main concourse. “Of all the one-level malls we designed, this will look the best,” said Jerry F. McWilliams, president of CMH Architects, the Birmingham, Ala.-based firm that designed Mall at Turtle Creek. “It will knock your socks off.”

“When people say enclosed malls are passé, I think they are talking about properties that are not representative of the merchandising needs of the market,” said David Hocker, CSM, chairman of David Hocker & Associates.

In crafting the center’s architecture, CMH and Hocker & Associates had to avoid the missteps of designers of similar projects in the past. Experts agree that hybrid malls have been problematic because builders treated the open-air portions as an afterthought, placing them near the tail end of projects, where they had little visibility. Some firms failed to make signage and other design elements cohesive to join the indoor and outdoor portions as a single property.

“You might as well keep it enclosed, in my opinion,” said Harkin.

CMH placed Mall at Turtle Creek’s lifestyle center portion right up front. From the street, passersby will be able to see storefronts, sidewalk areas with brick pavers, streetlamps, benches and people milling about, says McWilliams. A grassy area 100 feet in diameter has been studded with bronze sculptures.

The lifestyle center portion transforms the typical mall, which is often massive and utilitarian, into an exciting retail experience, said Hocker.

To provide some visual continuity between the exterior and enclosed portions, CMH persuaded the tenants to use the same color palette when choosing bricks for their facades and exterior walkways.

Leasing is another critical element of a successful hybrid center, observers say. The main anchors are Dillard’s, JCPenney and Target. Barnes & Noble; Bed Bath & Beyond; and Circuit City anchor the lifestyle portion and also serve as junior anchors to the whole project.

Retailers include Chico’s, Gap, Coldwater Creek, J. Jill and Ann Taylor Loft, says Philip L. Purdom, CLS, director of leasing for Hocker & Associates. With those tenants on board, the developer is confident of having a trophy mall on its hands, says Purdom.

And perhaps this will provide inspiration for the construction of even more enclosed malls. “Let’s remember that the best-producing centers are still the enclosed malls,” said Thomas. “Hopefully, in time the pendulum will swing back into more equilibrium. There will always be a need for enclosed.”