Breaking Rank

Urban regeneration leads to new Shopping centre concepts

The city of Lodz is about to come full circle when Manufaktura shopping centre opens for trading in the heart of Poland. Once called the Promised Land, after the Polish government created a textile-focused industrial core there in the early 19th Century, Lodz found fortune and fame at the hands of magnates such as Izrael Poznanski, whose cotton factory was the hub of a self-supporting community whose structure mirrors today’s mixed-use complex model. Next to the Poznanski Factory, there were villas, palaces, housing estates for factory workers, hospitals, shops, schools, train stations and many other amenities that catered to the local residents’ every need. The boom then came to a brutal halt during WWI and Lodz took another major hit in WWII. But in this dawn of the 21st Century, the old factory and its city are paying tribute to their past and building a new promised land around Manufaktura.
Named by a creative group of students from Lodz University, Manufaktura is touted as one of Europe’s largest urban regeneration projects and it is the biggest challenge yet for developer Apsys Polska, whose president Stephen Pragnell has been actively involved in mobilising Poland’s shopping centre industry—Pragnell, who is chair of the 2006 ICSC European Shopping Centre Awards Jury, was the one who at the 1992 MAPIC fair in Cannes, France, initiated the establishment of the Polish Council of Shopping Centres, which now counts more than 80 members.
Breathing new life into the old Poznanski Factory, Apsys Polska took hold of 27 hectares of land and got to work, restoring the historical plant’s 12 buildings and entrance gate (the architecture is registered in UNESCO’s list of national heritatge monuments) to create a destination centre and lifestyle place offering its visitors a mix of retail, culture, entertainment and business.
Manufaktura will comprise of a 100,000-square-metre shopping mall boasting 200 boutiques, 30 mid-sized specialty areas, a Geant hypermarket and the Leroy Martin do-it-yourself superstore, not to mention 50 shops and galleries of art situated around a three-hectare market square. To complete the multi-use concept, Manufaktura will also have office space, a three-star hotel, a wide offer of food, sports and entertainment, as well as four cultural institutions: the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Tecnique and Science for Children, the Museum of the Place and the Museum of the History of the City (housed in Poznanski Palace)—just what might appeal to the city’s young and educated population.
Manufaktura won’t open until spring 2006, but the centre has been marketing itself aggressively for a solid two years. Apsys launched a campaign in May 2003 with the opening of an information building in the former factory fire brigade headquarters. Since then, Manufaktura has held Open Days for Lodz residents every six months, updating them on the site’s progress as well as inviting them to participate in guided tours and a variety of special events for adults and children—from drawing contests to local folk shows to hot-air balloon flights. There have also been high-profile events with celebrities like renowned filmmaker Roman Polanski and actress Sophie Marceau, who, along with many others stars, became ambassadors of the place.
Parallel to that, Manufaktura connected with the community through charity auctions organised jointly with church organisations and which benefitted local schools, as well as through cultural events ranging from the Festival of the Dialogue of Four Cultures (Jewish, German, Russian and Polish) and the Camerimage Festival to the Children of Lodz Ghetto Concert & Exhibition and Grand Prix of Jazz Oscars.
The media are being courted as well, with regular press conferences and briefings that have led to substantial editorial coverage and the broadcasting of centre events on television and on the radio. The centre also distributes its Manufaktura News publication, a creation of ad agency Karta,  as a supplement in the local edition the Gazety Wyborczej daily, and it offers branded souvenirs such as postcards, posters and albums.
The end result is a site which, a year from opening, has already achieved brand status. According to external research that SMG/KRC Milward Brown conducted this past spring, 91.6 percent of respondents had heard of Manufaktura, 87 percent believed it would have a positive influence on the city and 92 percent said they would come to the centre for not only retail, but also for entertainment and culture.
Manufaktura is one of many shopping centres whose retailers and amenities resemble those of most other properties around the world, but whose organisation, architecture, mission and brand positioning set them apart from the mall clones.
This uniqueness, no doubt, is tightly linked to the fact that such hub centres do not present themselves as hermetic entities. Instead, they act as important catalysts of much bigger projects, namely the regeneration of urban centres, of communities. That role alone means that the centres’ future success lies in what they present to customers in-house and how well they get along with other bodies outside—local government, business leaders, community organisations and special interest groups are among key partners.
Far from Eastern Europe, in Australia’s Brisbane-Gold Coast corridor, Hyperdome is infusing new energy in the local community as well, this time through entertainment.
One of the largest shopping centres in the southern hemisphere, Hyperdome offers 10 major retailers and more than 220 specialty stores spanning the fashion, homewares, food and services categories. But what sets it apart is The Piazza, a recently completed  AUD45 million (£19 million or 28 million euros) entertainment and leisure precinct that is the first of its kind in the region.
The Piazza is an example of the indoor-outdoor living concept that has been so prevalent in contemporary residential architecture. With its 12 restaurants and cafés in an outdoor setting replete with lush manicured gardens and water features, the precinct markets itself as the place to experience varied cuisine, view the latest films at the Hyperplex Cinemas, hone skills at the Hyperbowl or enjoy live entertainment—children are catered to in a state-of-the-art playground. Add to the scheme the adjacent Hyperdome Home Centre, a bulky goods outlet with more than 25 homewares retailers, and you have the makings of a destination shopping centre.
Back in Europe, The Mills Corp. imported its own “shoppertainment” formula from the US when it opened Madrid Xanadu in May 2003. Named the Most Innovative Shopping Centre in Europe by the ICSC, the 440-million-euro property is the first project in the region to be fully developed and operated by a non-European operator.  Madrid Xanadu takes family entertainment to a whole new level and its site, whose racetrack layout allows customers to easily peruse its 220 merchants, made its mark with the Parque de Nieve, Spain’s only indoor snow resort.
The 17-story snow dome, which is jointly managed by Heineken and Intrawest (the company behind Canada’s successful Whistler Blackcomb resort, host of the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games),  offers sub-zero temperatures year-round and an 820-foot artificial snow slope. Skiers and snowboarders can get some exercise using their own gear or rented equipment, take a lesson and then unwind at one of the restaurants and bars. Parque de Nieve even has a conventions room with view of the snow slope.
For those who’d rather enjoy more clement surroundings, Madrid Xanadu proposes many other activities, including an indoor go-cart track, 15-screen cinema, Tazz entertainment bar and bowling alley, and the Bulebar complex with its restaurants, bars and nightclub. For children, Madrid Xanadu features Neverland, Argentina’s indoor theme park concept, and Chiqui Park, a 2,500-square-metre area comprising of a kids school, kindergarten service, lactation room and soft-play area with balls-pool, karaoke and traffic-education track, among other amenities.
Because it offers so many unique elements—from the snow dome to market-exclusive shops—Madrid Xanadu brands itself as a destination property where local residents and tourists will want to spend more time (and likely money) than in a traditional mall. Likewise, NovenaSquare Shopping Mall in Singapore is hoping to attract shoppers from near and far when it completes a major expansion in the autumn of 2006. The mall will add 70,000 square feet to its existing 130,000-square-foot mall and will focus on a niche market: active consumers. Sports shops, a fitness centre and a food court will be the central offering of the revamped mall to be dubbed Velocity@Novena Square.
Of course, not all new shopping centre concepts involve mega destination properties. Some centres are part of regeneration projects that are much smaller in scale but just as crucial to the communities they serve.
On Canada’s West Coast, TransLink and the Greater Vancouver Regional District in British Columbia were awarded funding from Transport Canada under the Urban Transportation Showcase Programme to help back sustainable transportation initiatives that promote walking, cycling, transit and other active ways of getting around. Among the initiatives is the Transit Village,  a compact, mixed-use community concept centred around a transit station, enabling residents, workers, and shoppers to drive less and take transit, walk and cycle more.
Transforming the areas around Surrey Central, Metrotown, Edmonds, and Broadway/Commercial SkyTrain stations into Transit Villages will involve both immediate improvements and the development of a long-term plan for the area, with retail playing a central role, alongside other possible components such as housing.
These Transit Villages offer shoppers what they already want—i.e. shops, convenience and service—and new features that can potentially alter their shopping habits.
Such changes are occurring in the Middle East as well, where some traditional open-air bazaars are being reinvented and new zoning allows for the development of retail centres in residential areas. These enclosed shopping centres offer a new experience for their markets, with shops where customers don’t need to bargain, amenities for children and conveniences like shopping bags and carts.
These days, the ‘build it and they will come’ approach to shopping centre development doesn’t seem to work anymore. There are simply too any players vying for the same consumer dollars, particularly in North America. However, when new development concepts are at the core of community regeneration, they have a much better chance of breaking rank from the mall clones and offering consumers a unique destination to shop, play and live.

Engines of Change

These major trends are engendering the creating of new shopping centre concepts around the world:

1. The appeal of multi-use developments
Urban planners are recognising consumers’ yearning for communities that encompass every aspect of their lifestyles and shopping centres play major roles in these multi-use schemes,

2. Technology
The seamless integration of technology into consumer life is influencing shopping centre conceptualisation. Technology adds functionality and enhances a property’s architecture and design.

3. Traffic Management & Sustainable Living
Shopping centre developers are using more creative traffic management to enhance footfall to their properties.