WASHINGTON, DC–Zavazone is a startup retailer which hasn't even launched its second location yet — doors will open on Nov. 4th — but that hasn't stopped malls from around the country from contacting the company about opening a location in their retail center. The outreach is a testament to Zavazone's interesting concept but it is also illustrative of how eager malls are to attract retailers that provide an experience to shoppers.
Zavaone, briefly, is an indoor adventure park aimed at children and their parents but open to anyone that wants to walk across its catwalks or bounce on its trampolines.
It was co-founded by Josh Oboler and Joe Henry of Washington, DC, who own several Montessori schools in the area.
The idea for Zavazone was borne out of their own frustration in not having an ideal place to take their kids during the weekend. “There was a lot of junk food involved, and places that were one-trick ponies — there would either be trampolines or climbing walls or jungle gyms but nothing that had everything under one roof,” Henry tells GlobeSt.com.
“So we started thinking what we could do.”
Today Zavazone has one facility in Rockville, MD, and its second location poised to open in Sterling, VA. They are both industrial/flex warehouse type of buildings located near other activities.
It was no sooner that the Rockville location opened that the phone started to ring, Oboler tells GlobeSt.com. The two had assumed they would expand the concept,through a mix of franchise agreements and additional owner openings and as expected, discussions for franchise opportunities are underway. What was surprising, they say, was the number of malls that had begun to contact them.
“We have been contacted by malls in the Midwest, by multiple malls in New York and New Jersey and as far south as Texas,” Henry says.
“We're getting cold calls from all over the country. I just received a phone call from a gentleman from this family group, that owns malls from North Dakota to Texas. They are getting into exactly this kind of thing.”
By “this kind of thing,” Henry is referring to Zavazone's activity-based concept that in broader terms is called experience retail. Such tenants have become highly-sought after by retail centers — they bring traffic that cannot be disintermediated by the Internet.
So far the two are in discussions but nothing has been signed yet with a shopping mall. “We're actively in negotiations with several locations,” Oboler says. “I would be surprised if in the next 18 months we don't have our first mall space up and running.”
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
