Centennial’s new president wants to see a youth movement in retail real estate

Whitney Livingston got into retail real estate young. The Wesleyan graduate was 22 when she joined The Mills Corporation to assist the marketing director of the Great Mall in Silicon Valley. Next came eight years at Madison Marquette, where she rose to senior VP before arriving at Centennial to serve as founder Steve Levin’s COO. Now, as the company’s president, one of the things she’d like to do is recruit more young people to work in what she thinks is the most fun and challenging segment of real estate. 

“What better time than now for young people to take advantage of the opportunities our industry is presenting?” she said. “Disruption breeds opportunity and our industry has never been more open to new ideas and talent.”

Last April, when the pandemic took hold and workers got locked inside their offices, Livingston formed a work group to put into action Levin’s omnichannel battle cry to “meet people where they want to be met.” Shop Now! was born, a program that allows people to shop Centennial’s seven regional and super-regional malls the same way they shop Amazon. 

Shoppers can log in, search for “red shoes,” and the site will display all red shoes available from various shops in the mall. They can then refine their searches, search for other products they want, and place them in digital shopping carts. In March, Phase 2 of Shop Now will be launched, allowing single payments for batch purchases from all participating stores. Customers will have the options of home delivery or going to the mall for in-store pick-up or curbside delivery.

“We had incredible results from Phase 1. In two months we processed 25,000 transactions.” Livingston said. “There’s been a misconception about Shop Now that we’re facilitating e-commerce, but most of the fulfillment is happening at our malls and we’re driving customers directly to our tenants.”

She sees big changes happening in tenant configurations, with as much as 40% of yesterday's mall GLA being repurposed to higher-performing uses like dining, entertainment, and fitness.

“Wellness is going to be the new hot category. Wellness is the new black,” Livingston said. “But retail will always be the glue that ties it all together.”