The lifestyle retail center product is essentially an anchor-less type of open-air retail that depends as much on creating pleasant strolling walkways and gather-and-stare plazas, as on the leading retailers included.
Lifestyle centers have risen in popularity with consumers as an antidote to the sameness they see had seen in their local retail offerings. As well, lifestyle centers are an outgrowth of the resurgence of "main street" retail distrcits and the always popular "great street" urban districts so popular with consumers worlwide.
Lifestyle centers emerged after, but as part of, a resurgance of interest among consumers towards "main street" style retailing as well as a major effort to develop "urban entertainment centers" (Universal Studios, SONY, Disney, among others). These trends were supported by general industry acceptance of "placemaking" and "gathering place" sensibilities. As well, retailers that preferred "main street" type locations found lifestyle shopping centers to be similar in terms of their store siting criteria.
Prominent lifestyle centers developed in the U.S. include Eastwood Town Center in Lansing, Michigan (2002); Denver Pavilions (1998); The Shops at Sunset Place in South Miami, Florida (1999); and the Commons at Calabasas in California (1998). Since these early protoypes, developers throughout the U.S. have been borrowing best-practices from many excellent examples of this retail center type, and have applied "lessons learned" to many hundreds of new lifestyle center developments.
Over the last couple of years, lifestyle retail centers have been impacted by the demise of many long-established "national credit" retailers.
The term "lifestyle center" is generally considered to have been first used with regard to The Shops of Saddle Creek in Germantown (a Memphis suburb), Tennessee (1987), although retail destinations with lifestyle-center attributes pre-date Saddle Creek. The Shops of Saddle Creek is the first shopping center in the U.S. to use the marketing and product description of "lifestyle center." Developed by Poag & McEwen, the lifestyle center includes national specialty shops and restaurants, including The Apple Store, Chico's, Coldwater Creek, J.Jill, J.Crew, Talbots, Williams-Sonoma. The project consists of three separate centers straddling Poplar Avenue: Saddle Creek North, Saddle Creek South, and Saddle Creek West.
Developers who have created successful lifestyle retail centers include:
RED Development (HQ Kansas City, MO) - Village Pointe (Omaha, NE), The Shops at Norterra (Phoenix, AZ), among others
Caruso Affiliated Holdings (HQ Los Angeles, CA) - The Grove (Los Angeles), The Promenade at Westlake Village (California), among others
Related Companies (HQ New York, NY) - CityPlace West Palm Beach, among others
