Placemaking is an essential element to shopping centre success and requires an ever-more evolved approach, Liad Barzilai, Atrium’s new CEO, said at ICSC’s annual European Conference.
Multi Corporation’s new CEO, Josip Kardun, agreed. ‘Up until recently, I believed that if a shopping centre was in a good urban location and was well-connected, it was enough,’ he commented. ‘But the way we approach projects now goes far beyond that.
‘Shopping centres of the future will have many more mixed-use elements to draw shoppers, incorporating a range of customer needs, including healthcare,’ added Kardun.
‘Fitness will be the food of tomorrow,’ suggested Przemyslaw Krych, founder and CEO of Griffin Real Estate.
For Russian developer ADG Group, which has recently purchased 39 regional Russian cinemas with plans to extensively redevelop them into mixed-use retail spaces, the much maligned cinema sector isn’t dead. ‘We’re going to open 39 shopping centres with state-of-the-art cinemas in the next two years,’ managing partner Mikhail Pecherskly said.
‘In Vienna,’ said Marcus Wild, CEO of SES Spar European Shopping Centers, ‘we retained 100% responsibility for the leasing of our project there to get the right mix between established retailers, new, creative retailers and innovative food and beverage concepts. For us, that approach is crucial.’
Moderator Andrew Phipps, executive director and head of retail research EMEA, said that retailers still had a lot to do to woo customers. ‘Up until now, some retailers have been charging shoppers for a click and collect service, or denying them the possibility of returning goods in person that they have bough online. This is crazy,’ he said. ‘We should reward customers for coming into shops, because then they’re likely to spend even more,’ he concluded.
