power center (retail)

280 Metro Center in Colma, California is credited as the world's first power center.{{cite news |last1=Totty |first1=Michael |title='Power' Centers Lure Shoppers by Mixing Elements From Big Malls and Small Plazas |work=The Wall Street Journal |publisher=Dow Jones & Company |date=December 27, 1988 |page=1}}{{cite book |last1=O'Mara |first1=W. Paul |last2=Beyard |first2=Michael D. |last3=Casey |first3=Dougal M. |title=Developing Power Centers |date=1996 |publisher=Urban Land Institute |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=9780874207859 |page=18 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RIZOAAAAYAAJ&q=%22the%20first%20power%20center%22 |access-date=13 August 2022}}{{cite book |last1=Laird |first1=Gordon |title=The Price of a Bargain: The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization |date=2009 |publisher=McClelland & Stewart |location=Toronto |isbn=9781551993287 |page=68 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PnuwJkSQgpsC&pg=PA68 |access-date=28 October 2019}}{{cite book |last1=Pacione |first1=Michael |title=Urban Geography: A Global Perspective |date=2009 |publisher=Routledge |location=Milton Park |isbn=9780415462013 |page=249 |edition=3rd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M3rAuvR-o-gC&pg=PT249 |access-date=28 October 2019}} In 1986, local real estate developer Merritt Sher opened 280 Metro Center next to Interstate 280 as an open-air strip shopping center dominated by big-box stores and category killers.{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Chris |title=Merritt Sher, Healdsburg hotel developer, dies at 78 |url=https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8108999-181/merritt-sher-healdsburg-hotel-developer?sba=AAS |access-date=28 October 2019 |work=Santa Rosa Press-Democrat |date=13 March 2018}} As originally constructed, 280 Metro Center featured {{convert|363000|sqft|sqm}} of gross leasable area on a 33-acre (13.3 ha) lot,{{cite journal |last1=Felgner |first1=Brent H. |title=Power Centers Pack Punch In Mature Market |journal=Marketing News |date=December 5, 1988 |volume=22 |issue=25 |pages=1, 10, 11}} which was home to seven anchor tenants, 27 smaller shops, and a six-screen movie theater. The original seven anchors were Federated Electronics, The Home Depot, Herman's Sporting Goods, Marshalls, Nordstrom Rack, Pier 1, and The Wherehouse.

In news coverage at the time, the phrase "power center" was treated as yet another example of the 1980s fad of forming buzzwords based on the word "power", along with power suits, power ties, and power walking. It is not clear who coined the phrase, but Sher's real estate development company, Terranomics, was happy to take credit for the concept by trademarking the phrase "originator of the power center".

280 Metro Center was a revolutionary development at a time when retail shopping in North America was dominated by enclosed shopping malls.{{cite book |last1=Laird |first1=Gordon |title=The Price of a Bargain: The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization |date=2009 |publisher=McClelland & Stewart |location=Toronto |isbn=9781551993287 |page=69 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PnuwJkSQgpsC&pg=PA69 |access-date=28 October 2019}} Dissatisfied with long hikes through shopping malls to visit relatively small boutique tenants, American shoppers flocked to power centers where they could conveniently park directly in front of big-box stores.{{cite news |last1=Neuborne |first1=Ellen |title=Power centers muscle in: Stores siphon shoppers from regional malls |work=USA Today |date=June 13, 1995 |page=1B}} Power centers usually have a parking area next to the entrance of each anchor and a high parking ratio, as high as six spaces per {{convert|1000|sqft|sqm}} of gross leasable area.{{cite book |last1=Kyle |first1=Robert C. |last2=Baird |first2=Floyd M. |last3=Spodek |first3=Marie S. |title=Property Management |date=2000 |publisher=Dearborn Real Estate Education |location=Chicago |isbn=9780793131174 |page=354 |edition=6th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GgFMvkuRO4IC&pg=PA354 |access-date=6 October 2021}} Thanks to such generous and convenient parking, the average visit length as of 1993 for a typical power center visitor was only 45 minutes, compared to three hours in a regional mall and four hours in a super-regional mall.{{cite journal |last1=Rybczynski |first1=Witold |author1-link=Witold Rybczynski |title=The New Downtowns |journal=The Atlantic Monthly |volume=271 |issue=5 |pages=98–106 |date=May 1993 |url=https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1993/05/271-5/132641481.pdf}}. Because their gigantic anchor tenants are each destinations in their own right, power center developers claim that 85 percent of their shoppers buy something on each visit, as opposed to 50 percent of mall shoppers.{{cite book |last1=Donnellan |first1=John |title=Merchandise Buying and Management |date=2014 |publisher=Fairchild Books |location=New York |isbn=9781609014902 |page=63 |edition=4th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nTQfAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA63 |access-date=February 27, 2023}} Power center developers usually recruit national chain stores as anchors, and in turn, the steady flow of customers and revenue resulting from consumer familiarity with such brand names helps such developers secure financing.

American consumers also found much lower prices at the stores in power centers, due to their relatively simple design, low overhead, and cheap rent.{{cite book |last1=Hartshorn |first1=Truman Asa |title=Interpreting the City: An Urban Geography |date=1992 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |location=New York |isbn=978-0-471-88750-8 |page=387 |edition=2nd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JKbIEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA387 |access-date=25 July 2023}} As of June 1995, a typical shopping mall tenant had to pay average monthly rent of $18 to $24 per square foot for their own space. Because it is far more difficult to build, decorate, maintain, and secure a multilevel shopping mall with skylights, lengthy interior corridors, and attached parking garages, mall tenants also had to pay an additional $8 to $12 in monthly common-area fees for each square foot of rented space. The comparable average monthly numbers per square foot for a typical power center tenant in the same timeframe were only $10 to $18 in rent and $3 in common-area fees, since a power center is merely a group of single-level warehouse-like structures gathered around a common open-air parking lot. Power centers have much lower costs than traditional enclosed regional malls for maintenance, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), electricity, and security for common areas.

These dual attractions of convenience and affordability drew American consumers by the millions to power centers during the 1990s. Shoppers from 51% of American households visited a power center in 1994, and for those households, the average number of power center visits that year was 19.5. By 1998, there were 313 power centers in the United States with a combined gross leasable area of {{convert|266000000|sqft|sqm}}. Together they accounted for over 5% of national shopping center sales. The highest numbers of power centers were in the states of California and Florida. By January 2017, there were 2,258 power centers in the United States with a combined gross leasable area of {{convert|990416000|sqft|sqm}}, which was 13% of the combined gross leasable area of all shopping centers in the United States.

In Canada, South Edmonton Common in Edmonton is the largest power centre, and one of the largest open-air retail developments in North America. Spread over {{convert|320|acres|sqkm}}, South Edmonton Common has more than {{convert|2300000|sqft|sqm|abbr=on}} of gross leasable area.{{cite web |url=http://www.southedmontoncommon.com/about-us/ |title=About Us |publisher=South Edmonton Common |access-date=July 6, 2017 }}{{primary source inline|reason=A non-primary source is needed to verify the info.|date=July 2017}}

{{Prose|date=December 2020}}

In recent years, it has become common for older, traditional shopping malls to:

• Become hybrid malls and power centers, where some or all anchors are big box stores, and the mall shops are still mostly national chains typically found in malls. Example: Panorama Mall in Los Angeles, anchored by Walmart and Curacao big box discount stores.
• Add outside but adjacent areas with big-box stores and/or strip mall-type buildings. Examples: Puente Hills Mall and Del Amo Fashion Center in Southern California; Deerfoot Meadows in Calgary, Alberta.
• To be torn down and replaced with a neighborhood shopping center or power center. Examples: La Mirada Mall and La Habra Fashion Square in Southern California; and Seven Corners Shopping Center in suburban Washington, D.C. Seven Corners, once anchored by department stores Garfinckel's and Woodward & Lothrop, was an indoor mall with an adjacent strip-style convenience center. The indoor portion was torn down and replaced with a strip of big box stores and smaller shops.{{cite web |title=Seven Corners Business Area |website=Fairfax County Economic Development Authority |url=http://www.fairfaxcountyeda.org/seven-corners-business-area |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924194852/http://www.fairfaxcountyeda.org/seven-corners-business-area |archive-date=2015-09-24 }}

File:Woodbury Lakes Mall.jpg outside of Minneapolis, a "Main Street" in the middle of a power center]]

Some new power center developments have attempted, as have lifestyle centers and regional outdoor malls (e.g. Otay Ranch Town Center, Atlantic Station), to recreate the atmosphere of an old-town Main Street. Stores line streets where cars may drive and where there is limited parking, with much more parking in lots or garages in the back. The "main street" particularly serves to house the smaller stores and chain stores once typically found in malls. An example is Woodbury Lakes in Woodbury, Minnesota—where, according to urbanist website [https://streets.mn streets.mn], the developers "dispensed with the integrated anchors and instead plopped down 'Main Street' in the middle of what is otherwise a regional power center".{{cite news |last1=Castleman |first1=Monty |title=From shopping malls to lifestyle centers |url=https://streets.mn/2020/05/11/from-shopping-malls-to-lifestyle-centers/ |access-date=June 27, 2020 |publisher=streets.mn |date=May 11, 2020}}

Power centers are almost always in suburban areas, but occasionally redevelopment has brought them to densely populated urban areas. In environments where denser development is desirable, a power center may consist of multiple floors, with one or more big-box anchors on each floor, and floors of parking, all "stacked" vertically. Examples of such centers include:

• City Point (Brooklyn)
• Dadeland Station (Miami)
• DC USA, Washington, D.C.
• Ellsworth Place, Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside the Washington, D.C. city limits, six levels
• Patio Santa Fe (Santa Fe, Mexico City){{cite web|url=https://www.stantec.com/en/projects/united-states-projects/g/gran-patio-power-center|title=Gran Patio Santa Fe|website=www.stantec.com}}
• The Tenor, formerly 10 Dundas East, Toronto

{{Main|Retail park}}

In Europe, any shopping center with mostly what are called "retail warehouse units" (U.K.) or "big box stores" or "superstores" (U.S.), {{convert|5000|sqm|sqft}} or larger, is a retail park, according to the leading real estate company Cushman & Wakefield.{{cite journal |title=European Retail Parks: What's Next |date=Summer 2019 |url=https://issuu.com/cushwake_be/docs/european_retail_parks_whats_next__j?e=36262806/70505197 |publisher=Cusman & Wakefield}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.across-magazine.com/development-retail-parks-accelerates-throughout-europe/|title=Development of Retail Parks Accelerates throughout Europe|first=ACROSS|last=EDITOR|date=August 23, 2016}} According to a 2003 UK book on retail property locations, the United Kingdom did not have any power centers, but "the nearest British equivalent to the power centre is the large retail park."{{cite book |last1=Schiller |first1=Russell |title=The Dynamics of Property Location: Value and the Factors which Drive the Location of Shops, Offices and Other Land Uses |date=2001 |publisher=Spon Press |location=London and New York |isbn=0-415-24645-8 |page=77 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0jl5AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA77 |access-date=14 November 2022}}

According to ICSC, what in Europe is classified as a "retail park" would, in the U.S., be classified thus:

• Power center – {{Convert|250000|to|600000|sqft|sqm}}, typically anchored by category-killer big box stores (e.g. Best Buy) including discount department stores (e.g. Target) and wholesale clubs (e.g. Costco)
• Neighborhood shopping center – {{Convert|30000|to|125000|sqft|sqm}} of gross leasable area, typically anchored by a supermarket and/or large drugstore

• Neighborhood shopping center
• Strip mall
• Types of retail outlets

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