Major retail property owners and open-air center developers such as Federal Realty, Regency Centers, Kimco Realty and Starwood Realty Partners, are all anticipating major changes in their development strategies to be implemented soon. At an effort to draw in shoppers from behind their computers or phones, these property developers are hoping to make these changes before the holiday shopping season.
Amongst the changes by retail center owners to expect include adding outdoor attractions to shopping centers such as ice-skating rinks, outdoor dining areas and gas heaters. Federal Realty plans to open its third ice skating rink at one of its open-air centers in Baltimore, Maryland. Surrounding the ice-skating rink will be outdoor dining options and gas heaters to keep people comfortable while enjoying the winter outdoors. Brookfield Properties also has plans to install an ice-skating rink along the water at its Brookfield Place New York center. Federal Realty and Brookfield Properties both hope that their ice-skating rink additions will be a fun and attractive enhancement to their centers during the gloomy winter months.
While the ice-skating rinks certainly do seem like a productive method to get people to come to your center, other retail center developers are tackling the online-shopper problem from a different approach. Many are planning to add office spaces, residential spaces, restaurants and hotels. Regency Centers, Kimco Realty and Starwood are amongst the retail center property owners that are planning to make spaces more multi-use. Starwood’s new CEO, Michael Glimcher, is focusing on adding enhancements to retail centers that shoppers can’t get online. Glimcher wants his retail centers to have half the amount of apparel stores and double the amount of restaurants.
Equip has worked with many retail property owners and developers to supply with them custom covers for their Specialty Leasing and Common Area Furniture needs including RMU/Kiosk Covers, tenant seating and indoor and outdoor furniture and site amenities. Equip sees opportunity to expand its services whether it be supplying ice-skating rinks with covers for equipment, providing site amenities to retail center expansions or supplying new office or restaurant and food court dining areas with furniture.
Additional Info on shopping center changes:
Furniture and Fixtures for Shopping Centers undergoing Renovations/Redevelopment: www.equipinc.com