Who Will be the Winners and Losers in the Food Hall Space?
GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVELY chatted with retail sources around the recent ICSC RECon event about all things food hall, and how to be an expert in that niche within the retail market.
LAS VEGAS—“Rather than having a food hall for the sake of having a food hall, we recommend designing a F&B experience that resonates with the community and fills a niche within the market.” That is according to Daniel Sweeney, senior associate of the retail studio at Cooper Carry, when talking about rethinking the requisite food hall.
In some cases, he says, a well-executed food hall is the right fit. In others, a variety of chef-driven restaurants and retailers surrounding an activated Plaza is a better strategy. “Our team analyzes a variety of dining environments – from micro food halls to ‘Restaurant Row’ concepts – and develops a design strategy that will best serve the development and its surrounding community.”
We also caught up with Greg Lyon, co-owner, principal and design director at Nadel Architects, who said that the repositioning of large-format retail spaces into multi-tenanted uses will continue to be vigorous. In many cases, these spaces are in prime urban locations, so programming multifaceted uses offers new amenities and experiences to a community in a desirable trade area. “Some of the current combined uses we are seeing include marketplace food halls, family entertainment venues, boutique carriage trade and high street retail services focused on beauty and health- all experiences that cannot be purchased online.”
When talking with Reg Javier, deputy executive officer of workforce and economic development for San Bernardino County, he said that the County is attracting many exciting experiential chef-driven food halls. Two are now underway in Redlands and Rancho Cucamonga. The Redlands Packing Plant, located in the historic Mutual Orange Company Packing House, will become a food hall featuring over a dozen micro restaurants, bars, and food operators. Haven City Market will repurpose a vacant JC Penney outlet into a boutique grocery concept, approximately 25 restaurants, specialty retail shops and a 20,000-square-foot outdoor park and garden.
Renaissance Marketplace in Rialto is a brand new ground up retail center featuring 430,000 square feet of shopping, dining and entertainment upon completion. Renaissance Marketplace, built by Lewis Retail, is being built near more than 800 housing units that are anticipated to open in early 2019 along with new industrial and warehouse openings that are expected to bring 10,000 new jobs. Grocery Outlet, Five Below, Party City, Panda Express and Starbucks have been announced as the latest tenants moving to the center.
A leader in the “eatertainment” movement, Punch Bowl Social opened a 19,000 square-foot restaurant, bar and entertainment concept in Rancho Cucamonga’s Victoria Gardens. Regarding the opening, Punch Bowl Social founder and CEO Robert Thompson said that Victoria Gardens is quickly becoming the Inland Empire’s go-to destination for anyone seeking a unique dining and shopping experience.
For Dan Sheridan, partner with Hoffman Strategy Group, he says that “traditional sit down restaurants, fast casual uses, food halls, now cinemas with expanded and elevated F&B, etc. All to some extent compete for same customer – there will be winners and losers and are landlords and developers planning for this.”
Keep checking back with GlobeSt.com for more from experts in the next few days and weeks as we fully cover the RECon 2018 event, with thoughts not only from attendees and panelists, but coverage of sessions, parties and more (even after it is all over). Also, be sure to check out some related stories below.
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