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Shopping Centers Today -> March 2003
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LEADERS MULL INDUSTRY’S FUTURE AT LEADING EDGE
BY MARK J. SCHOIFET
AVON, Colo. — Is Wal-Mart cool? An audience member posed the question to an expert panel at the end of a session called “Chasing the Cool” at ICSC’s first Leading Edge Conference in late January. The hour-long session, hosted by communications consultant and former fitness magazine publisher John Winsor, had featured discussions of such cutting-edge fashion trends as snowboarding chic and sleekly designed kitchen gadgets.
The question was met with silence. It was as if the air had been let out of a balloon. Wal-Mart, the conservative retail giant from Arkansas, was the last thing anyone expected to be discussed at a panel called “Chasing the Cool.” So the questioner tried another approach: “Is anything about Wal-Mart cool?” she asked. Finally, after several more seconds of silence, someone on the podium spoke up: “The prices,” he said, “are cool.”
This was not your typical ICSC meeting. Held at the Beaver Creek ski resort, the Leading Edge Conference brought together more than 100 senior retail real estate industry executives for a three-day, think-tank-style conference on cutting-edge trends.
The conference was unique not only for its intimate, Alpine village setting, but also for the number of speakers from outside the shopping center industry. Among these were ski resort developer Harry Frampton, industrial designer Tucker Viemeister, journalist and author David Brooks, National Public Radio commentator Linda Wertheimer, banker Don Sturm and footwear designer Anne Wiper. Insiders who spoke included Lee Wagman, former president of Trizec Properties’ retail and entertainment division; G. Dan Poag Jr., chairman of lifestyle center developer firm Poag & McEwen, Memphis; and Richard Green, vice chairman of operations for mall operator Westfield America, Los Angeles.
The format, which featured an “open square” table setup conducive to interaction, was so well received that by the end of the meeting, event planners were already talking about a second conference.
“The seeds have been sown,” said retail development consultant Ian Thomas of Vancouver, British Columbia, who served as conference co-chairman. “This is a conference that will grow through word of mouth.” Henry Beer, co-founder of design firm Communications Arts, Boulder, Colo., was the other co-chairman.
The early sessions were dominated by discussion of the impact of war with Iraq on travel, tourism and retailing. “War is going to have a major impact,” said Green during the CEO Forum hosted by Wertheimer.
Two speakers on the panel with Green said they worried about retaliatory terrorist attacks if and when a U.S. invasion begins. Poag said he was concerned about a terrorist attack on a U.S. port. He noted the adverse impact that last fall’s dockworkers’ strike had on retailers’ ability to obtain merchandise.
But at least one speaker brought some levity. The conference kicked off with a talk by Brooks, political analyst for The Weekly Standard magazine, at Beaver Creek’s $15 million Vilar Center for the Arts. Brooks discussed, with comic effect, some of the trends he first identified in his best-selling book, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. The writer calls this new upper class the “meritocracy,” for which résumés and school affiliation are more important than parental lineage. It’s important for retailers and developers to be aware of these trends, he said, because the offspring of these new power couples are the shoppers of the future.
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