The company's due diligence indicates Aspen Grove will serve 250,000 people with an average family income of $85,000. McEwen says only Deer Park Village near the Barrington "horse country" in suburban Chicago boasts better demographics.

McEwen told GlobeSt.com there are not more lifestyle centers in the region because it is a "new concept and it took some time to convince lenders and tenants that it made sense." And secondly, he says, "the country went through a period when retail was way overbuilt so virtually nothing was being built for four or five years."

Dana Hansen, a vice president of leasing at the company who coincidentally grew up in Littleton, says a good way to think about the centers is to imagine an upscale regional mall with no anchors. "'If you added four anchor department stores, each with 200,000 sf to our size, you'd have a regional mall of more than a million sf," Hansen told GlobeSt.com. But he says many people don't like to shop in regional malls. Indeed, rather than compete with malls that are several miles from Aspen Grove, such as Park Meadows and Southwest Plaza, Hansen says he expects to draw upon customers who primarily are Internet and catalog shoppers.