CHICAGO—As online shopping continues to grow in popularity, developers of mixed-use centers are increasingly recruiting retail tenants that can not only draw crowds, but ones that turn their properties into true neighborhood gathering spots. Brick-and-mortar stores can't match the convenience of online shopping, but internet users typically don't get much enjoyment out of the experience.

“We are trying to bring in the concept of experiential retail,” Jeff Berta, senior director of real estate development at Structured Development, tells GlobeSt.com. The Chicago-based developer recently completed the NEWCITY retail and residential complex in Lincoln Park.

Berta praises retailers such as Apple for helping make shopping into an experience that goes beyond just getting the products you want. Even Starbucks has played an important role. “You go in to get coffee, but the experience goes with it.”

In addition to 199 luxury apartments, NEWCITY houses the area's only Mariano's grocery store, which has become the metro region's hottest grocer, partly by providing its customers cafes, bars and other amenities where they can relax and enjoy a glass of wine or an espresso. Structured also brought in an ArcLight movie theater – another amenity that benefits a much larger customer base than just NEWCITY's residents.

Offering such experiences should “be more relevant as online shopping grows,” Berta adds. But even though restaurants and entertainment will form a key part of retail offerings in the future, a healthy mix is also important. He expects that however popular online shopping grows, for example, it will leave a lot of room for clothing stores. “There are still a lot of people who want to touch and feel those products. There is still that need to be there physically.” Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5^TH and DICK'S Sporting Goods, Inc. both occupy a significant portion of NEWCITY's 370,000 square feet of retail space.

“The concept of mixed use has been around for a long time,” Berta says. But he sees some changes afoot. Large format stores, such as Walmart and Target, are beginning to make expanding in dense urban cores part of their growth strategy, and that will provide developers of mixed-use centers with more opportunities. Both retailers are designing new stores of just 30,000 to 50,000 square feet, far smaller than their usual, and these will fit nicely into mixed-use developments that aim to become community centers.

The same neighborhood anchor concept also applies to Addison & Clark, a mixed-use project of 148 luxury apartments and 150,000 square feet of retail across from Wrigley Field. A joint venture of M&R Development and Bucksbaum Retail Properties, Addison & Clark will help transform what had been a neighborhood distinguished by its many bars into a year-round shopping, dining and entertainment district when completed in 2018.

Scale and scope are also vital to a successful mixed-used project. “If you're going to develop the biggest high-end grocery store in one of Chicago's most affluent neighborhoods and want new housing as part of the plan, then that project should have residences on par with the upscale retail offerings,” says Steve Fifield, chairman of Fifield Cos., which is developing the Sinclair, a 390-unit luxury apartment tower in the Gold Coast with a 58,000-square-foot flagship Jewel-Osco grocery store as the ground-level anchor. “In previous cycles, retail was often an afterthought in a multifamily building or vice versa. Now, we're much more strategic in developing projects where residential and commercial components are equally essential and intentionally synergistic.”

Instant Insights /

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