PRINT THIS STORY:

CHANGE TEXT SIZE:

Drawing shoppers: a goal of the name game

By Jon Springer

What's in a name? In the shopping center industry, Romeo's soliloquy about the sweet smell of roses could quite possibly raise a stink.

Names are important, experts say. The right name on a shopping center can help lead shoppers directly to the entrance, highlight the tenants or merchandising edge of a center, or establish a mood that sets it apart from the competition. By the same token, a poor name -- or even a name that was good once but has since taken on an undesirable meaning -- can go just as far to keep shoppers away and damage a center's reputation.

Developers are further recognizing the value of a good name on the corporate level. In the midst of today's spate of mergers and takeovers, shopping center companies are taking extreme care in selecting names that express the proper corporate identity, often with the help of consultants (see related story).

How do you name a shopping center? Imagine naming a child with hundreds of parents and you start to get the idea. Certainly, the process is often more complicated than naming a rock band or a softball team.

"Names are very important, especially when it's a redevelopment, or when new competition comes into the market," said Shari Simon, vice president, corporate marketing for Simon DeBartolo Group, Indianapolis. "A name means a lot to the public face of a project."

When Simon is faced with the task of naming a new project, a primary consideration is to inform its market area where the project is located, and to express something meaningful to that market, Ms. Simon said. The company's new mall in Albuquerque, N.M., for instance, was named Cottonwood Mall because Albuquerque residents recognized "Cottonwood" as a region on the side of town where the mall was being developed.

"Typically, when we develop a new center, we look at everything in the community. Nine times out of 10, there's a tree that's indigenous to the community, or a town, a village, a business center or a street that offers a name," Ms. Simon said. "We try to take the guesswork out of figuring out where the project is."

The Taubman Co.'s Westfarms is named such since it straddles the Connecticut burghs of West Hartford and Farmington. And why not? At 1.3 million square feet, Westfarms could be considered a town unto itself. Other centers -- Taubman's Stamford (Conn.) Town Center, for example -- effectively make use of two meanings of the word "center."

Redevelopments pose trickier issues, experts say. In South Miami, Fla., Simon has demolished and is redeveloping a property formerly known as The Bakery Centre. Simon officials have agreed to call the project the Shops at Sunset Place, but convincing the local community and media to call it anything other than "The Bakery" has been frustrating. It has been especially hard since The Bakery, which ceased operations in 1995, hadn't exactly endeared itself to the local community.

According to Ms. Simon, The Bakery was "a terribly defunct, never-run-well, people-didn't-like-it type of property. ... It's been a huge effort in press and community discussions to have people not call it The Bakery anymore. How do you do that? Well, we spend a lot of money on public relations to try and change that perception. We really want to get the new name out."

Deciding on a new name is an informal, collaborative effort between marketing staff and developers at Simon.

"We make lists and lists and lists and discuss what we like and don't like about them," Ms. Simon said. Often, members of the local community have input as well. Simon's redevelopment of its Randall Park Mall in Cleveland -- which it has yet to rename -- is one such case.

"Randall Park is an area that's become somewhat eroded over the years, and to the local community, the name means crime and some of the other bad words we don't want to associate with the property," Ms. Simon said. "The village consortium is addressing those problems and cleaning the area up, and we are working with them. I suggested we come up with a partnership that renames both the town square and the mall together."

A name is critical in terms of communicating a message about a new property, agreed Jack Illes, executive director of strategic projects for TrizecHahn Centers, San Diego. This is especially true in a highly competitive market such as Las Vegas, where TrizecHahn is developing Desert Passage at Aladdin, a 500,000-square-foot retail complex at Las Vegas' Aladdin Hotel.

"The good news is that everyone knows where the Aladdin Hotel is. The bad news is that we want to be thought of as being distinct from the hotel -- it's a 500,000-square-foot project that essentially can stand on its own," said Mr. Illes.

The company chose the name Desert Passage because "it ties into the idea of being in Las Vegas, that Aladdin is a desert-themed idea, and the idea of a 'passage' communicates that it's a sequence of adventures, a submersing environment."

In general, words like "passage" and "crossing" to denote a center have replaced an old reliance on words such as "plaza" and "mall," which have lost much of their impact. Less common still are alternative spellings such as "centre," and "shoppes," said Mr. Illes.

"You'll never hear me suggest a name like that. I think that's so contrived," he said. "'Shop-ees?' What does that mean? That's a game you can play with yourself, but I don't think it makes much of a difference to the shopper."

As with Simon DeBartolo, TrizecHahn is currently struggling to establish a new identity for a redevelopment project.

The company is in the process of re-tenanting and "de-malling" Pasadena Plaza, Pasadena, Calif., but has yet to find a name that will distinguish it from the project's former incarnation.

"Everybody knows what Plaza Pasadena is, but how do you communicate the fact that it's a new place? We're waiting around for some incredible inspiration to occur, or else we'll have to go out and hire somebody to do that for us," he said.

Occasionally, that "incredible inspiration" comes by accident. The name for Park Meadows, the company's 1.5 million-square-foot superregional mall in Denver, was originally chosen for a proposed office park at the same site. When the company shifted its development plans from office to retail, it decided to keep the old name. Had they started from scratch, the name Park Meadows may not have ever been considered.

"What we liked about it is that it communicates something that's resort-ish, and it was also one-of-a-kind -- there will never be another Park Meadows," Mr. Illes said.

However, even a great name is not invulnerable.

"What makes us cringe is when the media tries to attach another moniker to it and call it the Park Meadows Mall. We hate that," he added.

While some names are chosen for their distinctiveness, others are selected for their subtlety. TrizecHahn named its new Hollywood Boulevard project Hollywood & Highland so as not to overshadow its famous neighbor, Mann's Chinese Theatre, Mr. Illes said.

"What we're trying to do is knit the project into the community -- there's no logo, no signage. It's just supposed to be a part of the city," said Mr. Illes. "That was a deliberate decision not to come up with a name, though it is a case where everybody knows the address -- Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue."

The name says it all at The Elizabeth Center at 13A, a power center which provides a clever answer to the classic New Jersey question -- "You from Jersey? What exit?"

The 600,000-square-foot center, which sits alongside the New Jersey Turnpike in Elizabeth, N.J., features signage that incorporates the center's turnpike exit -- 13A -- directly into the "IZA" in the word "Elizabeth." That reminds the thousands of motorists who travel the turnpike every day not only the name of the center, but how to get there, said Roy Perez-Daple, president of the center's Elizabeth, N.J.-based owner and management company, Ikea Center Urban Renewal Inc.

"The crucial element of this project is the turnpike, and we're at Exit 13A. We knew that we had to communicate that very strongly," said Mr. Perez-Daple. "Also, a lot of people around here confuse things between Newark and Elizabeth, so we also wanted to make sure Elizabeth had an identity and say that we were proud residents of that city."

Naylor, DeDonato & Wolf (NDW) Communications, a Horsham, Pa.-based marketing and design firm, came up with the logo that tackled both concerns. "We looked at it from an organic standpoint," explained Bob Wolf, president of NDW. "They gave us the name and we said, 'How can we make these words mean more than the sum of the words themselves?'"

The Elizabeth Center is anchored by the nation's top-performing Ikea store, as well as a 100,000-square-foot Toys 'R' Us KidsWorld. Developers are preparing to add another 220,000 square feet of box space this summer, while Ikea is undergoing a renovation which will increase it to 350,000 square feet. Success is location, Mr. Perez-Daple believes, and thanks to the name, "everybody knows where we are."