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INSIGHTS: A DISCUSSION ABOUT “PUBLIC SPACE” DESIGN
Gaddis Architect specializes in all phases of commercial and commercial retail design, design management and construction. If maximizing the success of your business by optimizing the performance of your store, or commercial space design is a goal, then attending the following “Insights” could provide some very real benefits. Many common, and some not so common, design challenges are analyzed. Solutions aimed at increasing retail traffic, creating visual presence in various environments, and expressing not only a particular shopping experience but also the business’s brand, are presented. We think that all design is, on some level at least, retail design. Please scroll on, start a dialogue, contact us anytime.
It is all about visibility.
Shopping mall tenants are not the only ones who worry about site lines. Strip mall owners know that positioning the storefront facade to optimize drive by visibility will surely impact whether the center succeeds on not. It is even more important than maximizing leaseable area, almost always a function of available parking.
This landlord has an opportunity to increase the space in his center by demolishing the vacant unit at the end of the entry drive, and then building a new multistory building adjacent to the parking garage and across a newly created avenue. An expensive undertaking, that will go forward only if the site lines can be assured.
Existing Shopping Center
Site Line Study
The good location gone bad trap.
Even the most sophisticated retailers can get caught in the good location gone bad trap. One potential mine field in this regard has to do with locations that are being leased in newly built or renovated centers. The landlord’s leasing agent will show off the site lines on the lease plan. The tenant will be enticed with renderings of the wonderful public spaces, entries, food courts. He will be given tours of the construction site and his proposed new location, only to find out when it is too late that the plant scape in the mall concourse in front of his store has turned into a soaring public sculpture that totally blocks the view of his storefront. I have actually seen this happen, and recommend that retailers negotiate a lease that guarantees their site lines.
“Big Lots” or “Saks”
By the time an owner moves from just thinking about opening a new store to actually budgeting a project he has doubtless already hooked up with real estate agents, attorneys, marketing specialist, all having to do with the famous “location, location, location.” Now it is time to begin planning the new store, and one of the first things to be done involves scrutinizing the neighboring retailers. Here are just a few things that can be learned by observation, preferably before the tenant handbook is even opened: allowable sign types, allowable lighting types, allowable storefront finishes, allowable floor finishes, allowable extra shop merchandising, retailer mix by product & price point.
How is this information useful? One example comes to mind. Many shopping malls have both “high” end and “low” end sections. Although they rarely admit it, landlords push retailers into slots based on how they perceive the brand. For this reason we will never see a Big Lots next to Saks. Of course this is an exaggeration, but if you are a retailer for a new or little known designer it could be to your advantage to negotiate a location adjacent to Versace.