ICSC: Don't Count Malls Out

AVON, CO-All of the buzz today might be about lifestyle center development, but speakers at the International Council of Shopping Centers’ Leading Edge Conference here at the Ritz Carlton Bachelor Gulch yesterday said not to count out malls. “The idea that the mall is dead is not something we believe,” said Steve Maun, president of Scottsdale, AZ-based lifestyle developer RED Development. “We certainly view them as competition.”

But the malls many developers are building now are not the regional centers of 1980s. Chicago-based General Growth Properties, for one, last year opened the 2 million-sf Jordan Creek Town Center in West Des Moines, IA, which is a hybrid of an enclosed mall, as well as a Costco-anchored open-air center.

Mall owners are also redeveloping their centers, adding lifestyle, big-box and mixed-use components – and they’re not always seeing major returns on their investment right away, pointed out Michael Lebovitz, president of operations at Chattanooga, TN-based CBL & Associates. “We’re not in the business of losing money,” he said. “But we’ve seen what can happen when you don’t invest.”