Placemaking, Steve Wynn style

Founded by Don and Barbara Brinkerhoff nearly a half century ago, Lifescapes International made its bones as an architectural landscaping firm on the Vegas Strip, where it created the fire show at The Mirage and the water show at the Bellagio. What the founding couple learned in Vegas, their daughter, Julie Brinkerhoff-Jacobs, now applies to retail and lifestyle centers like Triple Five’s American Dream and Rockefeller Center’s Channel Gardens.

“Have people enjoy being in the space so much that they stay longer and spend more. That’s always been Steve Wynn’s philosophy: ‘Think about the Bellagio as a garden that happens to have a casino in it,’” said Brinkerhoff-Jacobs, referring to the famed casino owner.

Now president of Lifescapes, she doesn’t see why that same thinking can’t have people sticking around retail centers.

“Socializing is a big deal at retail now — water fountains where people can come and interact, mini-destinations and places to gather like fire pits, outdoor enclaves, open areas where they can have football games,” Brinkerhoff-Jacobs said.

Allocations for landscape architecture in the socialized retail world should average between 7–10% of a project’s budget. You can do $5,000 fire pits or $15,000 fire pits, but you’ve got to have fire pits or some other comfortable environment enticing shoppers to linger. It’s nothing more than the old marketing adage of giving the people what they want.

“People want to have experiences that encourage them to go out,” Brinkerhoff-Jacobs said. “We have to come up with new reasons for them to do it.”