Placer.ai: Are malls cool again?
Macy’s and JCPenney still play a key role in drawing customers to malls, but empty anchor implants like entertainment brands, fitness centers, and restaurants are increasingly building new traffic across longer ranges of hours, declares Placer.ai’s latest Mall Report.
One key participant in this trending phenomenon is a brand that most retail experts thought had run its course: Barnes & Noble. In recent years, the land’s leading bookseller has reinvented itself in smaller stores (15,000 sq. ft. versus 25,000 sq. ft.) redesigned to be “hangouts” for local customers with better lighting, more open layouts, and opportunities for social interaction.
At the Coronado Center in Albuquerque, N.M., the Barnes & Noble accounted for 7.9% in 2024, according to Placer.ai, outperforming both Macy’s and JCPenney.
Key food-and-beverage brands, too, are now outpacing department stores with their traffic counts. At Northridge Fashion Center in Northridge, Calif., Porto’s Bakery & Café was the No. 1 customer draw with a 15.6% share of overall center visitor, a full 3.6 percentage point lead over No. 2 Dick’s Sporting Goods.
And while Placer.ai had Target as the top tenant at Glendale Galleria in Glendale, Calif., Placer.ai with a 14.4% share of visitors, it was followed by by In-N-Out Burger’s 8.6% share in second place.
Not many years ago, shopping center tenants eschewed co-tenancy with gyms due to the high number of parking spaces they took up and the low number of purchases members made at other stores in the mall. Those days appear to be gone.
“Increasingly, shopping centers are turning to fitness centers as experiential anchors,” according to the Placer.ai report. “And since many people work out early in the morning, these gyms are having a significant impact on the distribution of mall visits across dayparts.”
At Northshore Mall in Peabody, Mass., where a Life Time gym opened in 2021, visits between 7:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. rose from 13% to 15% over the past five years. Similarly, at Jackson Crossing in Jackson, Mich., where Planet Fitness arrived in 2022, the morning visit share increased from 14% to 16%.
