Dolce: Talk to me a bit about what you would call a “successful” retail environment and what sort of qualities it might have.

Rogers: A successful retail environment should have uniquely distinct zones or districts—each inspired by purpose, function, or special experience. Combining the qualities of time, space, light, form, and texture with issues of use, mood, vitality, geography, and human reactions allows for an opportunity to develop retail projects based on discovery and experiential design. Therefore, the architecture and space is not a predetermined solution or style, but instead a customization that is conceived to react and mature with the ever-changing demands of people’s likes and dislikes. In addition to creating an appealing environment for people, the design of Santa Monica Place fulfills the site’s potential to unify and define the heart of downtown Santa Monica. The concept uses innovative planning techniques to turn the existing mall into a cohesive urban village. The new environment takes advantage of the city’s vibrant public spirit by connecting to the urban fabric of Santa Monica along the four main elevations. These included drawing elements of the surrounding neighborhoods into the project with four distinct entry zones representing the varying inspirations of the site—the intimate pedestrian scale to the north (Broadway entry); the ocean to the west (2^nd Street entry); the Civic Center to the south (Colorado entry); and urban Los Angeles to the east (4^th Street entry)—linking the entire district to establish a vibrant new urban corridor.

The urban inspirations and entry experiences are tied together at the center of the project with a new public plaza that creates an organic cohesion reflecting elements of each neighborhood, while promoting new communal experiences through heightened social activity. This single, grand plaza is itself a signature landmark of the new Santa Monica Place—acting as the heart of the project on the main level, with directional orientation and views to tenants, while providing a post-modern gathering space in sync with Santa Monica’s cutting edge, creative community.

The offering related to the targeted visitor is a third critical element. A basic concept of de-malling is that the offering of clothing, products, food & beverage, entertainment, and services must be configured in a way that maximizes the exposure for utilization to create new nodes of social interaction. Most competing retail projects offer essentially the same tenant mix. However, if that offering is situated within an attractive environment and arranged along a well thought out organizational framework and path of discovery, the space and environment will feel unique to the user, resulting in a new attraction. The planning and design of successful retail projects requires a strong understanding of the behavioral characteristics of consumers. A project must appeal to a collection of audiences: adults and families, children, young adults and professionals, seniors, locals, tourists, and the like. By understanding the desires of consumers, particular attention must be given to tailoring specific environments that cause an enjoyable emotional experience for each consumer group. Incorporated into the design are places that express the individual spirit of the locale, places for festive events, daily markets, and community gatherings. As a collective whole, this is retail repositioning, which culminates by delivering memorable experiences and spaces for people that will drive enhanced economic success for the project.

Dolce: How do you create this type of appealing environment, while keeping costs in mind, because from what I have been told, “retail repositioning” can get expensive.

Rogers: True. Another critical element is to create interest without causing additional construction costs. This is particularly critical with remodeling or repositioning existing malls into new urban places. Often a curved circulation armature is incorporated because it heightens the sense of place and adds to the interest of the project, while greatly improving the views to tenants. But employing artistically considered circulation and spatial elements must be well thought out so that construction is feasible, and the tenant shapes within lease areas are not compromised. The interior elliptical shape of Santa Monica Place’s central plaza, for example, is the heart of the project’s geometric language, and is offset towards the south at the second and third floors, specifically designed to maximize sunlight penetration into the center, while providing unimpeded views to tenants.

Dolce: What about multiple level retail environments?

Rogers: In multiple level retail environments, which are anticipated to become more common in the US, visibility between levels and vertical attraction are critical elements of design to achieve experience and success. The concept of the ‘fifth elevation’—the creation of a distinct entertainment or dining district on the upper level of a project to pull customers upward and activate each level is a simple solution for injecting new life into retail. A signature element of the new Santa Monica Place is the third-level rooftop Dining Deck that is unlike any other public space in the city. Featuring trees, including a large mature olive tree; an outdoor fireplace, cabana-style lounging cubes, and indoor/outdoor common seating, the Dining Deck is one of the few places where people can come to sit, relax and enjoy views from the ocean to the mountains without having to enter a private restaurant or another stand-alone facility. The Dining Deck includes chef-driven restaurant concepts, a host of fast-casual options and The Market, a collection of artisanal, gourmet and organic food purveyors.

Dolce: What would you say needs to be the key or initial focus of the design effort in order to gain financial success?

Rogers: In both vertical and horizontal retail configurations, the basic pedestrian circulation and layout needs to be the initial focus of the design effort in order to deliver a successful development. An enjoyable shopping center experience is designed from the inside out with the properly established armature being the primary key to financial success. Increased customer demand and the public’s desire to experience more than just a place to buy, requires an inherent understanding of human emotions and translating those emotions into a place. In today’s economic climate and competitive atmosphere, formulaic and standard solutions will not work. To mitigate the world creating more placeless places and re-establish communal spaces, retail centers must be designed for the people who live in, use and visit the city, with focus being given to the pedestrian experience and sense of discovery along and within the new urban destination.