South Gate Plaza’s transformation, from a blighted strip mall on Route 1 in Portsmouth to a lifestyle center dubbed Portsmouth Green, now includes apartments, a spa, a gym, a high end market and movie theatre. And it’s emblematic of the revolution happening to strip
malls everywhere.
This reinvention comes at an interesting time. Strip malls that add local restaurants and walkable green areas are filling their parking lots to capacity. Meanwhile, indoor malls like Steeplegate Mall in Concord, the focus of a Bloomberg.com piece on the death of traditional malls, are eerily quiet.
“That’s a big trend nationally,” says Carmen Lorentz, director of the NH Division of Economic Development, of reinvented strip malls. “They are almost like fake town centers. They typically have a mix of big box and a major anchor like a movie theater or a couple of anchors and activities, and sometimes they’ll even build a playground and housing. It’s almost like a village in and of itself.”
Strip malls are reshaping and, in some ways, redefining NH communities. The housing being built near Portsmouth Green will cater to those priced out of downtown living, says Josh Levy, principal of Waterstone Retail Development Inc. in Massachusetts, which bought and is redeveloping the Portsmouth strip mall.
Furthermore, he adds, anything those new residents might need will be at their doorstep. The 225,000 square feet of stores and restaurants already includes a Linda Taylor Boutique, Hand and Stone Spa, Orange Theory Fitness, McKinnons Supermarket, Shio Japanese Restaurant and a Cinemagic Cinema.
Retail Redefined
Before the Internet, consumers embraced malls, strip malls and catalogues. Those strip malls featured chain and box stores not found downtown. Now developers are building mixed-use retail properties that offer shoppers an experience they can’t find online such as browsing discounters T.J.Maxx and Marshalls, then popping next door to shop local stores and grab a bite at a restaurant. And they can do so without the hassle of urban parking.
“As we really got into the community, we started learning that it can be a real pain in the neck to go to Newington to shop, there’s no parking downtown, and you have all of these residents that live right near here,” Levy says of Route 1 in Portsmouth. “You’re in the heart of the residential [area], and there’s a ton of traffic in the area. So, you know, they wanted us to create something different, almost like an oasis on Route 1.”
Slowly over the past decade, Waterstone has reshaped the old plaza. “And we’re only a quarter of where we want to take it,” Levy says. “We just broke ground on 100 apartment units and are really just trying to add in more of that mixed use environment.”
Levy and Waterstone are doing what so many large retail projects nationwide and in NH are doing: recreating the way neighborhoods used to function around city centers, only this time, tastefully appointed and landscaped with a mix of local flavor and big box buying power.
“We’ll know that we’ve arrived when we hear somebody saying ‘hey let’s go take a walk around Portsmouth Green,’” Levy says. “That’s what we’re striving for.”
Changing Communities
That community feeling, rather than the “mega strip mall” appearance, is what is new about the way developers and city officials are planning these “lifestyle centers.”
“We’re all familiar with the old strip mall type development that happened on busy corridors, and we’ve seen some of them kind of die out and then some of them reinvent themselves,” says Nancy M. Carmer, economic development program manager for the City of Portsmouth. “And we have our share of them here in Portsmouth and so the city, in its master plan process, is looking at how we can maintain the vibrancy or make these areas more attractive, and the owners of these malls have been looking at that too.”
Carmer says these new lifestyle centers are meant to mimic the downtown experience with sidewalks, cafes and trees and to provide more than just shopping. For some developments, Carmer says, this includes asking developers to put parking in the back and storefronts at the sidewalk so that people can walk or bike to the center, just as they would in a downtown setting.
“People can live and work or shop really close, and they’re not in their cars as much. They have alternatives … Less strip mall, more community. People are demanding that kind of experience now, and I think that’s a good thing,” she says.
Carmer says she’s not concerned about these competing with downtown Portsmouth. While they may have similarities to downtowns, they do not offer the same authentic historic downtown or sweeping waterfront views or the gardens of Prescott Park or Strawbery Banke museum.
Also, she notes, Portsmouth has become a culinary destination with many cultural offerings, such as the Music Hall, and events like Market Square Day, the NH Film Festival, the Tall Ships, Portsmouth Criterion, and Vintage Christmas.
Nancy C. Kyle, president and CEO of the NH Retail Association, says retailers and developers are getting more involved in the community by creating touch-a-truck events, or holding fundraisers for local charities or trick or treating events for kids.
The Ridge, a new, two-phase, 250,000-square-foot shopping plaza built by Waterstone in Rochester, has developed outreach programs with the City of Rochester, Roger Allen Park, Chamber of Commerce, local schools and civic groups. Those collaborations include participating in job fairs, school internship programs, sponsoring local workshops and fundraisers, hosting a touch-a-truck event even while under construction last summer and planning a Family Fun Day this Fall. The Ridge also offers an outdoor park area that features seasonal entertainment, community events and alfresco dining.
At Brickyard Square in Epping, which Waterstone also developed, Levy says each year they’ve held the Brickyard Scare during which kids can dress up and trick or treat at the stores while actors walk around providing scares. The successful development has a mix of local and national stores and restaurants, as well as a movie theater and a state liquor store.
Brickyard Square in Epping. Photo courtesy of Waterstone Retail Development Inc.
Levy says he sought out popular local eateries because he wanted the plaza to have a mix of regional and national shops, as centers that have that mix are often successful.
Holding community events and creating an experience for the shopper helps give brick and mortar retailers a leg up on their online competition, Carmer says. After all, says Levy, if one of these plazas can be seen as an active civic center populated with retailers who are known to people in the community and who participate in the community, shoppers may choose to shop local over online.
Economic Impacts
In addition to building a sense of community, these centers are helping to keep local retail dollars in the host communities, says Greg Dodge, administrator for the Town of Epping, and Brittany Howard, Epping’s town planner.
Where folks in town used to have to travel 30 to 45 minutes to buy clothing or see a movie, Brickyard Square, which has 270,000 square feet of shopping and dining that includes a NH State Liquor Store, Market Basket, a 12-theater cinema, Marshalls and local eateries like Beach Plum and 900 Degrees Pizzeria, makes it so that they can get pretty much anything they want, right in town, Howard says. Moreover, says Dodge, the center is located at the southern part of Route 125, a major junction along a significant commuter route.
“I think now people are actually stopping to do shopping and spending more time in Epping instead of just driving through,” Dodge says.
Though it seems counterintuitive, there is also an argument to be made that, when done correctly, these large shopping centers (typically located outside of city centers) are actually helping downtown businesses.
“Big box retail is actually bringing people to the community that weren’t coming there to shop before,” says Lorentz with NH Economic Development.
“That usually helps the Main Street. Because there’s usually a very different character on a Main Street, which offers unique local things, eateries, smaller retail that provides more of that sense of place. That’s what the community is. But the people may be coming from far away because of the larger shopping options that are available. So it’s often a good compliment, if it’s done well and if the Main Street is organized and can take advantage of that.”
Portsmouth has achieved that balance, Carmer says, by working “hard to maintain a vibrant pedestrian environment downtown, complimented by gathering spaces at the waterfront and in Market Square and other location where people congregate to enjoy the atmosphere, public performances and historic architecture.”
Lorentz says another great example is Rochester. Though Rochester grew exponentially in the late 1990s and early 2000s, its retail and commercial sectors didn’t quite keep pace, says Karen G. Pollard, economic development manager for the City of Rochester.
Seeing this, she says that about 13 years ago, the city started actively pursuing new retail opportunities. The first new shopping center, Rochester Crossing, opened in 2008 and features Kohl’s, Lowe’s and Buffalo Wild Wings. After that, the city continued to work on a 900-acre commercial district complete with special zoning using Tax Increment Financing, Pollard says.
“And that’s what we have now is the construction of the first new shopping center in that district which has been The Ridge,” she says. “So this has been a very strategic plan for the city, and yes it was a number one economic development priority in our strategic plan.”
The Ridge in Rochester. Photo Courtesy of Waterstone Retail Development Inc.
When it’s all said and done, the two phases of the Ridge will total nearly 500,000 square feet of new retail, which includes PETCO, Marshalls, Famous Footwear, Hobby Lobby, a Market Basket Supermarket, ULTA Beauty and SuperCuts. The 110 Grille will open soon with an outdoor area next to it that will host events and concerts. The second phase of the project will include a movie theater.
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