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There does not seem to be a definite line between what one considers middle age and old age. Today it is easy to look young when most might consider the actual age to be quite old. I know in my circle of friends, they fight age progression with any means possible and that means most of them have had work done to their faces. There are two reasons that dominate their decision. The first is to simply look younger and second, people tend to gravitate towards those who look more appealing. This same philosophy applies to shopping centers. People, whether they are patrons or tenants, will patronize or locate their businesses to the more appealing shopping center in their target location. I would be willing to bet that most people can recall or visualize a 1970’s vintage shopping center with an old undersized grocery anchor tenant and if they look further they will find many vacancies or see a large turnover of tenants. There is one of these centers in every neighborhood.
 
As architects, we look at these underutilized shopping centers and visualize how good they could look. Astute owners of these centers should look at the business side of a more appealing shopping center because without a doubt, the center with the facelift will attract better tenants and achieve higher occupancy rates. As an example of this phenomenon, our firm has provided both architecture and engineering services to a large multinational coffee chain. After collaborating on almost 200 stores over a ten year period, I cannot recall once ever placing a store in one of these older centers that had not been upgraded. This chain’s philosophy was to place their store in the prime location in the best shopping centers and sign a long term lease. The 1970’s style shopping center, without the facelift, could never attract such a “class A” tenant. A bonus of having these small multinational tenants is they generate significant traffic to the center. Today the 20,000 or 30,000 square foot anchor tenant is a dying breed which makes these small well know multinational tenants the major draw. Without a doubt, a good looking center attracts better tenants who in turn bring more patrons to the center. In the long run, a facelift of a center is a good investment where generally everybody wins!

With the economy today, it is difficult to justify building many new centers. But improving those centers that exist appears to be the trend. One of our clients, who is featured in this site, is having tremendous success attracting new tenants to what has been an underutilized center for many years and the tenants that he is attracting are definitely “class A”. All of this demand is based on two significant factors; the location and the proposed design of the center. Although we have not yet begun construction, the tenants are signing leases based on the design renderings. A well designed façade with new signage and parking lot improvements will significantly increase traffic to this center. My client’s willingness to invest in good design should reward him handsomely.

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