Aaron J. Latham / Staff
1998: Park Mall, as it was then known, had a boxy, plain white exterior broken only by the sharp angles of the roof line.

Photos by Aaron J. Latham / Staff
Park Place's higher ceilings and comfortable chairs and couches are part of the effort to create an inviting environment for shoppers.

Today: The "life-style center" con-cept employed in the redesign of Park Place gives shoppers greater access and comfort - and trendy specialty shops, like Starbucks. While his family shops, Alfonso Alvarez, of Hermosillo, Sonora, takes advantage of the seating to take the load off his feet.

What's new Opening Wednesday at Park Place Food Court: * Häagan Dazs Ice Cream * Jamba Juice * Manchu Wok * McDonald's * Mrs. Fields Cookies * Nathan's Famous Hotdogs * Pretzelmaker * Richie's Neighborhood Pizza * Rubios Baja Grill * Sarku Japan * Steak Escape * Subway New stores: * Fred Myers Jewelers * Fast Fix Jewelry Repair * Game Daze * Hat World * Kevins Jewelers * Picture People * The Body Shop * Select Comfort Restaurants to open by January: * Bamboo Club * Metro Grill Park Place Source: Park Place

"We get bored so easily. This new format has breathed life into the traditional shopping center." Ellen Goldsberry, director of the Southwest Retail Center for Education and Research, University of Arizona

T he word "mall" was the first thing to go.

Park Mall became Park Place after General Growth Properties Inc., the country's second- largest mall owner, bought the 26-year-old property.

It disappeared before the mall's boxy white exterior was transformed into a colorful montage of shops. Before the indoor concrete benches made way for leather sofas. And before the opening of this week's new wing, to include several new stores, a 20-screen movie theater and a palm tree-decorated food court.

That wasn't by chance. General Growth Properties has remade what was once Tucson's smallest mall into a "lifestyle center," a collection of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues designed with an emphasis on access and comfort.

The new design keeps the traditional mall, but adds a "street" of outdoor shops that allow shoppers to drive right up and park in front of merchants such as Old Navy, Z Gallerie, Borders Books & Music and Starbucks Coffee.

The changes have boosted the number of visitors to Park Place from 10 million in 1998 to 14 million last year. That increase comes even as business at the city's other two malls has dipped and nationwide mall traffic has remained flat since the mid-1990s. But sales are up at Foothills Mall in Marana, which boasts some lifestyle-center attributes - a movie theater, sit-down restaurants and several stores with entrances from the parking lot - said Tom Rae, general manager of Foothills Mall.

"We get bored so easily," said Ellen Goldsberry, director of the Southwest Retail Center for Education and Research at the University of Arizona. "This new format has breathed life into the traditional shopping center."

The rising popularity of lifestyle centers could be a retailer and consumer backlash to the retail Taj Mahals erected in the 1990s, industry experts said. It's hard to top the immensity of Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis, analysts say, with its seven-acre amusement park, shark-stocked aquarium and four-story Lego showcase.

Instead, developers, such as General Growth, are moving to build or redevelop more intimate shopping areas. They are ripping off rooftops and doubling the ceiling height, creating airy indoor shopping areas aimed at bringing the outdoors inside. Outside, trendy specialty shops near cobblestone walkways evoke the nostalgia and convenience of the old Main Street.

"People long for the days when people strolled the streets to do their shopping," said Michael McCarty, a senior vice president with Simon Property Group Inc. in Indianapolis, the nation's largest mall owner.

Eight more stores, and theater

In Tucson this week, Park Place, 5870 E. Broadway, will open eight new stores, a 20-screen movie theater and a food court with architectural flourishes reminiscent of an Old World marketplace.

But General Growth, which bought the mall in 1996, is rethinking its final touches on Park Place, which may not surface for up to three years: Will it keep with the older-style mall concept, adding an upscale anchor store, or cater to mall-fatigued customers by placing small trendy retailers - such as Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel or the Pottery Barn - in an outdoor streetscape?

"We want to make sure we're doing the right thing for the market," Park Place Marketing Director Lori Inman said.

Trend began in 1970s

The first outdoor shopping areas emerged in the 1970s, experts said. But the concept didn't catch on for at least a decade.

Developers have entered markets cautiously: the industry's top two players are planning less than a half dozen such centers nationwide this year. A recent article in Shopping Centers Today estimates there are about 25 lifestyle centers nationwide, not including hybrid centers such as Park Place, which are part mall, part lifestyle center.

Lifestyle centers tend to be one-quarter to one-half the size of older enclosed malls. They typically open to the outdoors, include upscale stores that represent a certain "lifestyle" and offer more entertainment than malls.

If the centers are renovated malls, developers add outdoor shops to existing structures that pull from local architectural designs and themes that include early 20th century streets.

Developers G. Dan Poag and Terry McEwen are considered the grandfathers of lifestyle centers. They trademarked the concept and opened their first, The Shops of Saddle Creek, in an upscale Memphis neighborhood in 1987.

For safety-conscious shoppers in a hurry, the concept offers the convenience of parking lots within 30 feet of a center's entrance, retail experts said.

"We're looking more at the lifestyle centers now, because people's habits are changing. They're time-pushed," said Bette Kahn, a spokeswoman for Crate & Barrel, a Northbrook, Ill.-based houseware chain.

For shoppers with time, many lifestyle centers provide more spots than old-style malls to sit and relax.

"This is better than anything we have in Long Island," New York visitor Cecile Baer said as she motioned to the couches during her recent one-hour walking exercise routine inside Park Place. "When I finish my walk, I'm going to relax and call my friends. Then I'll shop."

For developers, lifestyle centers offer speed - it can take up to 12 years to plan, develop and lease a conventional mall, and about a quarter that long for a lifestyle center, said Mike Cohn, a senior vice president with Cousins Properties Inc.

Retailers such as Talbots, Ann Taylor and Gap also like that lifestyle centers tend to appeal to upscale shoppers and often offer lower overhead.

Retail industry-sponsored research shows that specialty-center shoppers average 50 percent more purchases per trip than those at malls and have household incomes almost double the average mall customer.

Still, national developers say the trend won't put regional malls out of business.

"Just like discount stores didn't destroy department stores, the lifestyle centers won't destroy the mall," said McCarty, the vice president with Simon Property.

$50M to buy, more to renovate

General Growth bought Park Place for $50 million and has spent more than that on renovations.

With the additions of such Tucson firsts as Ann Taylor Loft, Z Gallerie and Abercrombie & Fitch, retail sales revenues have climbed, said marketing director Inman. Meanwhile, El Con Mall and Tucson Mall officials said their sales have dropped slightly in the last year.

"Sure we've lost some shoppers given their additions at Park Place," El Con spokeswoman Susan Allen said. "We see it as only temporary as we get new retailers."

The family-owned El Con announced it would "de-mall" nearly a year ago and floated an architectural concept that incorporated a village-like marketplace, outdoor dining and an open-air market. So far, no new stores have signed leases.

But by late November, the mall plans to open its new food court with four of 10 planned tenants. Early next year, mall owners will bankroll a renovated entrance with Spanish colonial architectural influences.

Across town, Tucson Mall was last updated in 1993. Its owner, Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises Inc., said it will not redevelop Tucson's largest mall. Company officials would not comment on persistent industry buzz that the mall is for sale.

Careful attention to whimsy

The architecture of lifestyle centers is designed with careful attention to whimsy, fancy and illusion, experts said.

"They're selling an experience," said James Twitchell, author of the forthcoming book, "Lead us into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism."

Consumer experts call it "managed nostalgia," citing such examples as Disney's white-picket fence community known as Celebration in Central Florida, with shops, restaurants and a movie theater within walking distance of homes; or Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, designed to look like an old-time downtown.

"It's tapping into people's desire for something that never existed," said cultural historian Timothy Burke, an associate professor at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. "Frankly, there was never a community like these places. But they create an environment that people think that shopping environments were like."

* Contact Star Business reporter at 573-4213 or by e-mail at jrelly@azstarnet.com.

All content copyright 1999, 2000, 2001 AzStarNet , Arizona Daily Star and its wire services and suppliers and may not be republished without permission. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution, or retransmission of any of the contents of this service without the expressed written consent of Arizona Daily Star or AzStarNet is prohibited.