How to Design a Mixed Use Retail Space
Mixed use retail development has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of variety is mixed retail's most obvious bonus. Giving customers multiple shopping choices under one roof, or multiple roofs in the structure, is a definite retailing advantage. Customers are drawn to mixed use shopping, since they can shop for more needs at a single location and drive less. The biggest disadvantage is that mixed use retailers are interdependent. All the different stores must succeed to maintain the full shopping diversity advantage. When stores in a mixed use area fail and are empty, that can hurt the remaining stores.
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Instructions
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Sketch out on a piece of paper your idea for a mixed use retail space. Arrange and locate the different store types in a logical shopping pattern. Group auto-related, sports and other outdoors type shopping in close proximity to each other. Locate grocery, household and inside needs shopping with any food establishments. Think logically and plan for organized, free-flowing foot traffic. Include well-lit and convenient entry and exit for each store.
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Confirm your plan with the local zoning department. Take your sketch to the local zoning department. Review the tentative plan with zoning officials to make sure what you have planned is permissible according to current ordinances. Check with the permits department and confirm permit needs before finalizing your plan. Meet with the fire marshal and go over your mixed use plan to be sure the plan is within fire code standards.
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Research the expense of each store within the mixed use plan. Write down and expense out each store's specific plumbing, lighting, waste disposal and other requirements. Auto service stores will have very different requirements than, say, restaurants. Remember that mixed use development is more expensive than single use development. Plan to meet the different needs of each shop/store, or you will not attract and keep tenants to those stores.
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Show your plan to construction contractors. Recruit construction, plumbing and electrical contractors. Visit them and discuss specifically how to lay out each phase of the construction for each store within the facility. Be proactive and look for potential layout issues. Address them in advance with your contractors to avoid potential code violations and other problems.
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Take all the information from all your meetings and compare the requirements from the various departments to what you initially sketched out. Make the necessary corrections; then, draw out a final design concept. Draw in each store's floor plan according to what was learned in the meetings.
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Post opening soon signs as opening day approaches. Line up your contractors and develop construction schedules to get the facility built. Have signs erected announcing what is being built and when the stores will be opening. Increase the advertising and announce tenants as opening day draws near. Be very careful to whom you lease your stores. Require solid performance numbers and business histories of those who express interest in your development. Remember that store occupants are the lifeblood of your project.
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Tips & Warnings
Remember that any mixed use retail space is only as viable as its "weakest" retailer.
Consider mixing residential with retail to build in a customer base.
Mixed use developments are generally not popular with planning and zoning officials; they prefer single use since the permitting is not as complicated.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit shoppers at shopping center image by Sergey Kolesnikov from Fotolia.com Department of Treasury Building image by dwight9592 from Fotolia.com construction workers image by Edward White from Fotolia.com suburban shopping center under construction image by jedphoto from Fotolia.com
