Experiential, Adventure Tenants Are Drawing Consumers To Shopping Centers

Experiential tenants are increasingly breathing life into a resurgent retail sector as consumers venture out to dine, socialize, and work out in person, with traffic to experiential destinations like bars, theaters, and entertainment attractions ticking up by 40% year-over-year in 2022.

These experiential concepts — which run the gamut from large fitness centers to adventure and sensory experiences like American Ninja Warrior in Santa Ana, Calif.’s MainStage Mall — are also a boon to adjacent retailers, according to analysts from JLL. Data from Creditntell shows that a retailer in a shopping center or mall that also has a fitness center gets 2.5% more visits than it does in a center without a fitness tenant.

“We predict that average shopping budgets will remain intact this year, despite inflation. In fact, if inflation continues its downward trend we may see consumers spending even more than they did last year,” says Keisha Virtue, a senior retail research analyst at JLL. “Barring any major shocks, it’s fairly certain that consumers will do more dining out, entertainment activities and traveling than in 2021.”

Yet as consumer prices continue to tick up, it’s likely that mall visits will remain below normal levels.  According to Placer.ai data, mall visits were down in August after a consistent run of year-over-year growth. Both the indoor mall and open-air lifestyle centers sectors saw increases in the visit gap year-over-year, with the former posting an uptick of 1.1% between July and August and open-air lifestyle centers increasing by 0.9% in the same period.

“The difficult comparison to a uniquely strong 2021 alongside the unique challenge of facing a variety of economic headwinds were always going to present a significant obstacle for August 2022 visit numbers,” Placer.ai’s Ethan Chernofsky says. “However, even with those issues, visits were only down 4.3% and 2.3% for the two formats respectively – a sign of continued relative strength, especially when comparing to certain retail segments that were traditional mall anchors. This indicates that steps malls have taken to diversify their tenant mix and push for more experience and dining oriented options are resonating with audiences.”