Power center (retail)

The term "power center" is used among developers and retailers as industry jargon to describe a shopping complex, generally 23,000 to 56,000 square metres (250,000 to 600,000 sq ft) in area, that typically includes three or more freestanding anchor stores, separated by a minimal number of small specialty tenants, in which the anchors occupy 75–90% of the total area.[4][5]

280 Metro Center in Colma, California is credited as the world's first power center.[6][7] Local real estate developer Merritt Sher opened 280 Metro Center in 1986 as an open-air strip shopping center dominated by big-box stores and category killers.[6][7][8] 280 Metro Center was a revolutionary development at a time when retail shopping in North America was dominated by enclosed shopping malls.[6] By 1998, there were 313 power centers in the United States with a combined gross leasable area of 266 million square feet; together, they accounted for over five percent of national shopping center sales.[7] The highest numbers of power centers were in the states of California and Florida.[7]

In Canada, South Edmonton Common in Edmonton is the largest power centre, and one of the largest open-air retail developments in North America. Spread over 320 acres (1.3 km²), South Edmonton Common has more than 2,300,000 sq ft (210,000 m²) of gross leasable area.[9]

In recent years, it has become quite common for an older shopping mall either:

• to become a hybrid mall and power center - where some or all anchors are big box stores, but the mall shops are still mostly national chains typically found in malls. Panorama Mall in Los Angeles is an example, anchored by Walmart and Curacao big box discount stores.
• to add areas outside but adjacent to the main mall with big-box stores and/or strip mall-type buildings. Puente Hills Mall and Del Amo Fashion Center in Southern California are good examples of this. and Deerfoot Meadows in Calgary.
• to be torn down and replaced with a neighborhood shopping center or power center. Examples in Southern California include La Mirada Mall and La Habra Fashion Square; and Seven Corners Shopping Center in suburban Washington, D.C.; once anchored by department store Garfinckel's, Woodward & Lothrop in an indoor mall with an adjacent strip-style convenience center, the indoor mall portion was torn down and replaced with a strip of big box stores and some smaller shops.[10]

Woodbury Lakes outside of Minneapolis, a "Main Street" in the middle of a power center

Some new power center developments have attempted, as have lifestyle centers and regional outdoor malls (e.g. Otay Ranch Town Center,, Atlantic Station), to re-create the atmosphere of an old-town Main Street. Stores line streets where cars may drive and where there is limited parking, with much more parking in lots or garages in the back. The "main street" are serves in particular to house the smaller stores and chain stores that once were typically found in malls. Woodbury Lakes in Woodbury, Minnesota is an example, where according to urbanist streets.mn, the developers "dispensed with the integrated anchors and instead plopped down 'Main Street' in the middle of what is otherwise a regional power center".[11]

Dadeland Station, a vertical power center in Miami

Power centers are almost always located in suburban areas, but occasionally redevelopment has brought power centers to densely populated urban areas.

In environments where denser development is desirable, a power center may consist of multiple floors, with one or more big-box anchors on each floor, and floors of parking, all "stacked" vertically. Examples include:

• 10 Dundas East, Toronto
• City Point (Brooklyn)
• Dadeland Station (Miami)
• Metro Center (planned, East Village, San Diego)[12]
• One Westside (West Los Angeles)[13]
• Patio Santa Fe (Santa Fe, Mexico City)[14]
• Toreo Parque Central, Mexico City[15]

In Europe, any shopping center with mostly what are called in the U.K. "retail warehouse units", or in the U.S., "big box stores" or superstores, 5,000 square metres (54,000 sq ft) or larger, is a retail park, according to the leading real estate company Cushman & Wakefield.[16][17]

In the U.S., according to ICSC, what in Europe is classified as a "retail park" would in the U.S., fall into one of several categories:[3]

• 250,000 to 600,000 square feet (23,000 to 56,000 m²) - a power center - typically anchored by category-killer big box stores (e.g. Best Buy) incl. discount department stores (e.g. Target) and wholesale clubs (e.g. Costco)
• 30,000 to 125,000 square feet (2,800 to 11,600 m²) of gross leasable area - a neighborhood shopping center - typically anchored by a supermarket and/or large drugstore

• Neighborhood shopping center
• Strip mall
• Types of retail outlets

• SmartCentres – includes photos of its developments