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Designing Retail in Emerging Markets - You don't normally think of Europe as an emerging market....(More)

Next Generation Retail Centers

In February 2009, the lead article in the New York Times Sunday business section was entitled: "Our Love Affair with Malls is on the Rocks." As the title of the article suggests, we have reached a bellwether moment where after approximately 50 years the building type that was the backbone of destination shopping, at least in North America, has not only reached a state of maturity, but actually of decline.

From Middle Eastern souks, to the English "high street," to the American "main street," to the 1950s enclosed mall, to today's "lifestyle center," we have witnessed retail adapting to changes in societal structure, as well as patterns of consumption and urban development. Where successful cities such as London, New York, and San Francisco have regenerated their retail across an open-framework of blocks and parcels for over 150 years, shopping centers - usually controlled by a single ownership with a singular development pattern - easily go stale and end up in an evolutionary dead-end.

Customer expectations have irrevocably changed. JRDV has been on the leading edge creating successful centers that are complex urban places that bring a diversity of experience, a broader mix of tenants, and cultural experiences. Where traditional retail environments sanitized the experience, this next generation of retail works to bring an authentic diversity of architecture, mix of shopping, cafes, entertainment, culture, and civic uses. Next generation retail centers are becoming complex hubs of real urban experience.

JRDV's retail projects are built around strong city planning elements such as streets, town squares, courtyards, informal pocket parks, sidewalks, and pedestrian paseos, no two of which are ever the same. Projects are set up to allow for combination of retail, cultural, residential, and office development that can evolve over time. We have a vast experience partnering with developers to successfully meet the economic demands of their projects with a powerful vision and execution to create sustainable next generation retail centers.