hospitality facilities BUILDING TRENDS ANALYSIS TODD JOYCE FOR LIBERTY CENTER When the developer Steiner + Associates opened a freestanding Brio Tuscan Grille at its Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, too many shoppers passed it by. So the Brio at Steiner’s Liberty Center near Cincinnati (pictured) is flanked by two smaller retailers. It also has a front and back patio. the International Council of Shopping Centers, have sprung up across the country. Liberty Center, a $350 million, 1.2 millionsf lifestyle center that opened near Cincinnati last October, will eventually offer 21 restaurants. The 600,000-sf Hill Center Brentwood, a lifestyle center situated between Nashville and Franklin, Tenn., is scheduled to open this fall with at least three standalone restaurants: the 8,000-sf Mexican casual Uncle Julio’s, the 3,500-sf Nami Sushi bar, and the 2,800-sf fast-casual YEAH! Burger. Tom Rogers, Director of Community and Economic Development for Mill Creek, Wash. (2015 population: 19,760 est.), says the tenant base in the city’s “town center” has changed dramatically since its opening in 2004. “Our original vision as mostly highend retail boutiques has evolved to become more service oriented, like chiropractors and restaurants—things you can’t buy on the Internet.” The 500,000-sf town center, about 20 miles north of Seattle up Interstate 5, now hosts 15 sit-down restaurants and another eight food and beverage shops with seating. “Restaurants bring an energy to town centers that not all retail can,” says Beau Arnason, EVP/Asset Manager for developer Steiner + Associates, whose six town centers include Liberty Center. The following trends show the central role that restaurants—at 14.4 million, the nation’s second-largest employer, according to the National Restaurant Association—play in the future of brick-and-mortar retail, and in customers’ lifestyles. 1. Lifestyle center developers are encouraging restaurant tenants to make a bold statement and attract shoppers to their retail stores. Lifestyle centers set out to create walkable mini-communities with distinct, often nostalgic, architectural styles from which their developers usually don’t permit much deviation. Chain operators and drive-throughs are prohibited at Mill Creek. Hill Center Brentwood’s developer, H.G. Hill, is “very strict” about maintaining the look of the neighborhood, says Matt Nicholson, Business Development Manager in Turner <strong>Construction</strong>’s Nashville offi ce. Turner was the contractor on the project. But lifestyle center developers are open to new realities, which may explain why Hill Center Brentwood’s design includes more glass for daylighting than is typical for such projects, says Nicholson. Mark Eclipse, AIA, LEED AP, Principal with Prellwitz Chilinski Associates, says PCA’s recent experiences designing lifestyle centers have found “developers really want the restaurants to stand out.” At the 475,000-sf Marketplace lifestyle center in Lynnfi eld, Mass., restaurant tenants must offer outdoor seating. So PCA’s design included canopies over the seating areas. Lifestyle center developers are a bit more fl exible when it comes to design parameters for restaurant interiors. Gensler’s Washington, D.C., offi ce is working with a client whose restaurant will anchor a lifestyle center. “The developer is doing backfl ips to accommodate the chef,” says Kimoy Lallement, AIA, LEED AP, Gensler’s <strong>Design</strong> Manager. 62 MAY 2016 BUILDING DESIGN+CONSTRUCTION www.BDCnetwork.com
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