To be fair, it was a mixed-use conference, so it'sunderstandable that the praises of collection-style developmentswould be praised at this conference. Steiner told the audience ofabout 200 retail professionals that mixed-use projects, touted forthe past three to five years as the next fad in retail, are nowofficially mainstream, so much so that communities are insisting onthe product type. "Planners now are requiring mixed-use componentswith many new projects," he said.

He broke down the growth cycle of mixed-use, retail-led projectsinto three time periods. From 1985 to 1995, there were newdevelopments such as Horton Plaza in San Diego or CocoWalk inCoconut Grove, FL, where developers experimented with leisure,attraction anchors such as movie theaters, by moving thesedestination tenants to the front rather than the rear of theproperty. "This is about the time we started to hear about urbanentertainment centers, and when we learned how to make the parkingrequirements co-exist," Steiner said.

From 1995 to 2005 was the growth period for mixed-use, withprojects such as Dolphin Mall in Miami and Easton Town Center inColumbus, the latter a milestone in proving that open-air,lifestyle communities could work in a cold climate, he said. Also,newer enclosed malls popped up, but started to include more typesof other property with the mixed-use development, including hotelsand residential.