Can Green Building Help Lifestyle Centers Succeed?
“Too many malls swamp developers” trumpets the Wall St. Journal headline today, citing the slowing economy for the failure of many lifestyle (open-air) centers to fully lease their premises. I’m wondering if a focus on green buildings and green development would help developers and retailers gain an advantage in a more difficult economic circumstance.
With so many major retailers building green (Kohl’s, Office Depot, Home Depot, Best Buy, Coldwater Creek, to name a few), wouldn’t it make sense for shopping center developers of these large lifestyle centers to build to LEED standards and offer prospective tenants the prospect of an easier certification, by supplying 8 to 10 “LEED points” for retailers? Just yesterday, I was in on a project meeting for a national retail chain that is specifically aiming at a green building certification for a new store located in such a “green” shopping center. The interest is clearly in marrying the two concepts: green retail and green development. Wouldn’t it make sense for developers to use this market slowdown as an opportunity to explore green building concepts and the value of using those as marketing tools for major tenants?
Posted by on 07/17/2008 at 12:54 PM
