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Panel sees lifestyle format as success story

By Tom Kirwan

LAS VEGAS — Like former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who once said he couldn’t define pornography but knew it when he saw it, a panel of industry executives sought to define an emerging shopping center category — lifestyle centers — but conceded that it is a difficult task.

Whatever its definition, however, they all agreed that the new centers are giving shoppers an alternative to regional malls and big-box centers, and their start out of the gate has been strong.

A last-minute change turned what was supposed to be a look at “New Tenants in Small Centers’’ into a session on “New Tenants in Lifestyle Centers’’ during the Spring Convention here.

Moderator Lewis Stirling, SCSM, CLS, senior vice president of leasing and acquisitions for Stirling Properties, New Orleans, got the session rolling by giving details of his firm’s Premier Centre, a 270,000-square-foot lifestyle center whose second phase will be fully occupied this summer. Heavily landscaped and using many of the existing pine trees at its site at the intersection of U.S. 190 and N. Causeway Approach in Mandeville, La., the project has an open-air design.

Its tenant roster draws from the big-box and regional mall segments and includes Old Navy, Bed Bath & Beyond, Gap, GapKids, Barnes & Noble, Motherhood Maternity and Ann Taylor Loft.

Stirling leased outparcel space to sit-down restaurants such as Chili’s and Macaroni Grill. “We wanted to keep shoppers in the center late, so it was important that we have sit-down type restaurants rather than fast-food restaurants,” he said.

Stirling said the center is doing well — posting sales of between $400 and $500 per square foot. The center — in a rapidly growing area 25 miles from the nearest regional mall — has 82,000 people in its primary trade area and 62,000 in its secondary trade area.

Stirling said tenants’ cost of operation is about 60% of area malls, while his tenants that are usually found in traditional malls are posting sales better than 30% of their mall counterparts.

Panelist Jeffrey Bayer, president of Bayer Properties, Birmingham, Ala., described how his company leveled a small mountain there to create The Summit, a 500,000-square-foot lifestyle center that opened in October 1997.

Unlike Stirling’s project, The Summit is anchored by a department store, Parisian. In-line tenants in the project, located at U.S. 28 and I-59, include Williams-Sonoma, Talbots, Chico’s, Bed Bath & Beyond and Ann Taylor. Bayer said the mix in what he called his firm’s “pedestrian-friendly” open center was “finely edited” to match its market.

A third lifestyle center reviewed is planned as part of a 26-acre redevelopment in downtown San Diego. Panelist Albert Corti, CLS, senior vice president of real estate for Corti Gilchrist Partnership, detailed plans for East Village Square, set to open in 2002 overlooking a new Padres ballpark. Surrounded by green space and boasting 200,000 square feet of shops, the project will also have office and hotel space.

Scott Olivet, senior vice president of real estate for Gap, said lifestyle centers — however defined — are meeting consumer demand. “Customers have told us over and over that what they are looking for is convenience,” he said. “There are a lot of ways to be successful, but if we miss convenience, it’s over.” Olivet and other Gap staff recently visited 25 open-air centers that are typically being called lifestyle centers. “I don’t know what it is,” he said of the term “lifestyle center,” but he went on to say they are usually open-air, typically not anchored by a department store, and range in size from 70,000 square feet to 300,000 square feet or more.

Tenancy varies, he said, with some having only national chains and others including unique local tenants. Nearly all have some sort of entertainment, including themed restaurants and multiplexes.

But he doubts a cookie-cutter lifestyle center is on the horizon: “All [of the different styles of lifestyle centers] can work, as long as it matches the market.”

Olivet said lifestyle centers often capture consumers who avoid traditional malls, and that they tend to be affluent or nearly so. They also hold great appeal for destination shoppers, he said, and seem useful when a market changes or existing malls fail to update.