Carol Todreas, Todreas Hanley Associates

What goes around comes around in the most dynamic industry in the world.

Start with developers. To reinvent the ailing mall, developers are removing the roofs of appropriate enclosed malls to create an open air shopping experience that will better serve the tastes of millennial consumers. The designs will now resemble city shopping streets with sidewalks, landscaping, and places to gather and be entertained.  As malls are transformed to become more like a city or town center, tenants have to reinvent themselves or be replaced to provide customers with that great shopping experience as well.

Continue with the Tenants. Among the most progressive tenants are the grocers. They have developed smaller and diverse footprints to fit into certain malls; e.g., Wegmans will replace JC Penney at the Natick Collections, spring 2017, and select urban street locations.

Not only are the big retailers, such as Target, re- thinking their concepts, but the smaller Mom and Pop’s are also changing to appeal to the new consumers who enjoy shopping in groups. Savvy stores have added play stations for kids, attractive, comfortable seating with free wi-fi for couples, and large dressing rooms for families. Some specialty retailers have added coffee bars, small cafes, and even water bowls for dogs. All this to offer a pleasant and social excursion so people want to come out to do their shopping,

The largest group of on point tenants by far are those that feature specialty eating and drinking. Millennials prefer to eat out much of the time and to keep home food preparation at a minimum. This means café bakeries, gourmet take outs, small bistros, wine/cocktail bars, specialty health food restaurants are all in demand as of course are the food trucks and their particular adaptations to a brick and mortar concept. Eating and drinking out is not only convenient, but now a fundamental form of entertainment .

Consider the Future. One of the newest trends in brick and mortar just started in Toronto: a café concept that features analogue, not digital, board games that customers play face to face. And there are lines to get in. When you pair this with Amazon’s plans to open 300-400 physical stores, you know the old/new will be the future.

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