Carol Todreas, Todreas Hanley Associates

I went, I saw, I listened to –Biznow’s Annual Retail Event. Retail leaders focused on anchors, environments, and the future of retail in mixed-use projects. Two panels discussed current conditions: one, the challenges of developing projects; another leasing trends.

My take away: Without question in Greater Boston, retail development as part of a mixed use project presents opportunities albeit with many challenges. Research, time and patience is required to get the physical layout and tenant mix right. The retail component must be strong and interesting enough to attract customers beyond the residents and workers in the adjacent uses.

Today’s tenant mix utilizes restaurants, entertainment, wellness/ fitness centers, medical retail, and casual eating and drinking to keep customers coming around the clock. This might include cinemas, bowling alleys, yoga/spinning studios, gyms, grocery stores, coffee shops, bars, and local retailers for unique goods.

To draw today’s consumers, projects needs public spaces for informal relaxation and gatherings. Mixed-use projects need to become an identifiable brand through iconic stores, branding and place making. This art is an important ingredient to any mixed-use center. Tools can include attractive landscaping, food-truck friendly areas and open spaces. Pop-up stores can be a temporary fix for vacancies and add the excitement of innovation and change. And once again, the mix of retail and other tenants needs to provide goods and services from breakfast through lunch and dinner to watering holes at night.

Still needing work: The question not answered is how to make such developments feel local instead of anywhere USA. Today’s retail must avoid the trap of becoming too similar and hum-ho. There cannot be just one tenant mix for all mixed-use urban projects.

Shoppers today want “Brooklyn.” They want to walk around, discover shops and eateries, stop for great pastry and drink a craft beer, all the time looking at their phones, but still interacting and looking at other people.

Much of the ground floor retail being built today is flawed. It looks uniform with large storefronts and large boxy spaces. Can we not find ways to create enough small spaces for local retailers and entrepreneurs within these developments so there is variety, surprise, excitement about what might be around the next corner or what might be there this week that wasn’t last week?. We need to create spaces and a scale that in some ways represents the best of former traditional town centers AND the traditional markets. This is now what today’s consumer needs to incite him/her to leave the computer and look for enjoyment in the real world.

Carol Todreas is a principal at Todreas Hanley Associates, Cambridge, Mass.