ICSC: Lifestyle Centers Evolve

BOSTON-Lifestyle centers continue to evolve and are getting harder to define, said speakers yesterday at the International Council of Shopping Centers’ Research Conference here at the Park Plaza hotel. Initially, the centers were defined by ICSC as being affluent open-air centers with 150,000 to 500,000 sf of space and possibly one small department store anchor.

Mark Thompson, formerly director of research for the Rouse Co., who is now with General Growth Companies (General Growth closed on its acquisition of Rouse earlier this month.), used one project his company is developing as an example of lifestyle centers’ evolution. The Shops at La Cantera, in San Antonio, will not only have a total of 1.3 million sf when it opens next September, but Dillard’s, Foley’s, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom department stores as anchors.

“I don’t think there’s an all-encompassing term that’s going to define all of the variations,” said Jon Meyer, a partner at Columbus, OH-based lifestyle development firm Stanbery Development. In contrast to Chicago-based General Growth’s projects, the three lifestyle centers Stanbery has opened are all under 200,000 sf.