The place must be authentic and “deliver what it promises,” according to CBRE, which defines placemaking success as being “about people: making them feel something different—a feeling that draws them to and keeps them in a place.” In addition, “a strong place offers layers to peel back; under each there is something else to explore, something else to experience.” Finally, “a place's overall offer must be curated.”

It's not necessary for retail to be all things to all people in order to create a sense of place—although destinations such as the Mall of Dubai and Val d'Europe in the new town of Marne-la-Vallée outside Paris cover quite a few bases. However, CBRE has identified five elements that can help in placemaking: leisure, technology, sustainability and well being, vertical retail and planning. To this last point, CBRE says, “The development of a place that integrates many different functions—from residential and office to hotels and retail—needs a strong master plan developed in conjunction with the planning authorities.”

Master planning figures prominently in an example of retail placemaking in CBRE's hometown of Los Angeles: the Runway at Playa Vista, part of the broader Playa Vista development owned by Invesco. “While efforts to build master-planned communities have existed in the US for more than a century, few have approached the goal using such a contemporary style; the architecture and design of the Runway project seeks to combine an appeal to the high-tech hub it serves while fostering a localized community feel,” the report states.

The wider Playa Vista project encompasses approximately 1.3 square miles and represents “a very large, mixed-use planned community,” says CBRE's report. “Within the Runway portion of the project, the tenant mix has been carefully selected to offer shoppers a wide range of categories and brands while appealing to local residents and the daytime office crowd
of the primarily tech offices that neighbor Runway. For this reason, there is a mix of restaurant, entertainment and retail, in addition to convenience and daily needs shopping like grocery and drug stores.”

LOS ANGELES—A quote variously attributed to Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner has it that “everybody talks about the weather, but nobody goes anything about it.” Something similar might be said about placemaking: everybody's talking about it, but nobody's exactly sure how to define it.

Successful placemaking doesn't have to include retail as a component, but there's plenty of evidence that it certainly helps. CBRE has collected 20 prime examples from across the globe—seven in the Americas, six in EMEA and seven in Asia Pacific—in which retail in one or several forms helps to create a destination.

“Although people still enjoy and prefer to shop in stores, they have become more demanding: alongside all the functional aspects of a shopping trip, they want an experience,” according to CBRE's report, titled Retail and Placemaking. “This is what retail placemaking strives to deliver—the experience along with the functional.”

Although each of CBRE's 20 destinations uses retail in a different way to define a place, all are bound by a number of common elements. “For placemaking to be successful, it must be founded on a clear vision of what the place is to achieve,” the report states. Furthermore, “It's important to understand a place—what will work and what won't.”

The place must be authentic and “deliver what it promises,” according to CBRE, which defines placemaking success as being “about people: making them feel something different—a feeling that draws them to and keeps them in a place.” In addition, “a strong place offers layers to peel back; under each there is something else to explore, something else to experience.” Finally, “a place's overall offer must be curated.”

It's not necessary for retail to be all things to all people in order to create a sense of place—although destinations such as the Mall of Dubai and Val d'Europe in the new town of Marne-la-Vallée outside Paris cover quite a few bases. However, CBRE has identified five elements that can help in placemaking: leisure, technology, sustainability and well being, vertical retail and planning. To this last point, CBRE says, “The development of a place that integrates many different functions—from residential and office to hotels and retail—needs a strong master plan developed in conjunction with the planning authorities.”

Master planning figures prominently in an example of retail placemaking in CBRE's hometown of Los Angeles: the Runway at Playa Vista, part of the broader Playa Vista development owned by Invesco. “While efforts to build master-planned communities have existed in the US for more than a century, few have approached the goal using such a contemporary style; the architecture and design of the Runway project seeks to combine an appeal to the high-tech hub it serves while fostering a localized community feel,” the report states.

The wider Playa Vista project encompasses approximately 1.3 square miles and represents “a very large, mixed-use planned community,” says CBRE's report. “Within the Runway portion of the project, the tenant mix has been carefully selected to offer shoppers a wide range of categories and brands while appealing to local residents and the daytime office crowd of the primarily tech offices that neighbor Runway. For this reason, there is a mix of restaurant, entertainment and retail, in addition to convenience and daily needs shopping like grocery and drug stores.”