Developers and managing companies are actively inviting alternate operators into Shopping and Entertainment Centers (SEC). Lilith Adibekyan, the Manager of the Dream House Shopping Center, comments on such new market trends to the CRE Retail magazine.
The current market conditions largely contribute to attracting tenants of a new format to shopping centers – this makes it possible to liven up the habitual environment of a complex and attract more visitors. At the same time, the managing company shall ensure that the “alternate” tenant blends in with the overall style of the facility. Among the positive examples of such an approach, Lilith Adibekyan identifies a groups of tenants of the middle+ segment in the Vremena Goda, Metropolis and Kuntsevo Plaza shopping galleries, as well as the clusters of Russian designers in the Modny Sezon trading house and in Lotte Plaza.
DREAM HOUSE
New concepts have appeared in the Dream House Shopping Center as well: in spring, a health food store – Ugleche Pole. Organic Market – has been opened in the complex. “We are satisfied with the results of our joint activities: a gastronomic shop offering farm products has pleased our visitors. Taking care of one’s health, and notable, nutrition, is more and more coming into fashion, and it is particularly actual for family buyers who are the Dream House’s target group”, as noted Lilith Adibekyan
If we talk in general about segments in which non-standard tenants are the most widespread, these are entertainment, sports, various services, fashion and design. According to the expert, even more original format of partners are emerging in the today’s market, for instance, trampoline centers, contact zoos or sports areas. Attracting such tenants and concepts allows for increasing the number of visitors and the time of their staying in a shopping center; but it is a fairly bold experiment which required a detailed elaboration.
You cannot say with certainty that such partners will become a mass phenomenon for the lessor. Here, much will depend on the SC visitor’s demand and the ability of the management company to change itself. “Today’s visitors are more and more attentive both to what and where they purchase, and if the shopping center’s management is interested in increasing the efficiency of their facility, the appearance of ‘unique’ alternate tenants is only a matter of time”, Lilith summed up.