Since the days of COVID-19 quarantine and the extended isolation of lockdown, people have a new respect for the importance of social environments outside of digital communities, having been forcibly reminded of how much in-person experiences enrich our lives.
As more consumers reassess their lifestyles, seeking to shop, work, socialize, and live in ways that help them establish meaningful connections with other people, real estate professionals are responding with more creative and community-centered approaches to residential areas and shopping centers.
Real estate developers working on mixed-use, grocery-centered projects are increasingly experimenting with making these large centers more engaging and delightful places to shop, work, play, dine, and hang out with friends.
It wasn’t long ago that the prevailing wisdom held that the mixed-use shopping center and the mall were dying out with the rise of online retailers. Then, for a season, the pandemic turned malls into ghost towns.
However, after COVID-19, business has been booming in these centers, and developers have been examining what makes the most successful centers attractive to post-pandemic consumers.
A placemaking approach that integrates art and cultural programming—particularly local art and culture—into the center may be the key. Such an approach creates a strong sense of place and encourages strong ties between the shopping center and the surrounding community. Rather than just remaining shopping centers, these successful facilities become community centers.
How Art and Culture Strengthen Community
Two recent studies inform this approach. First, the Knight Foundation surveyed over 11,000 Americans and then released a report entitled Community Ties: Understanding What Attaches People to the Places Where They Live. This report revealed that “people with access to arts and cultural activities are more attached to their communities—in both feeling and action.” The increase in feeling is described as “satisfaction and lifestyle fit,” and the increase in action is defined as an “investment of time and resources in the community.”
Additionally, the report found that people who experience this attachment are more likely to stay in the community rather than move away.
A second study, partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kresge Foundation, culminated in a report entitled We-Making: How Arts and Culture Unite People to Work Toward Community Well-Being. This report emphasized the importance of “place-based arts and cultural practices, or creative placemaking,” which helps “grow social cohesion to encourage community well-being.”
The report cites examples of creative placemaking, including pop-up galleries, maker markets, special events and performances, and both indoor and outdoor exhibits and art installations. We-Making suggests that effective placemaking requires creating diverse cultural experiences that tap a variety of perspectives from within the local community. As community members engage with these experiences, they form interpersonal connections, develop greater empathy for their neighbors, and deepen their sense of belonging.
Bringing Creative Placemaking to Real Estate
As people seek out art and culture, personalized experiences, and community bonds, they seek close access to restaurants and shops and artistic, recreational, and cultural programming. Today’s mixed-use real estate developers can respond by creating centers that assign and prioritize space for authentic and local cultural experiences. Where these environments are popping up, they have a vitality and energy rarely seen in pre-pandemic developments.
For example, Assembly Row in Boston brings together restaurants offering regionally specific cuisine and producers of craft beverages. A monthly pop-up outdoor market brings about 30 local small businesses to Assembly Row, sharing local artisan products.
Danbury Fair in Danbury, Connecticut, partnered with the nonprofit Ben Bell’s Project to engage the community in creating drawings to represent “kindness.” Selected drawings inspired mosaics that were later auctioned for charity at the center.
These examples didn’t require significant investments of additional space, just intentionality and a commitment to centering consumers’ needs and values beyond just their shopping preferences.
Such examples, and others like them, inspire real estate developers to design creative mixed-use centers that are attractive to post-pandemic consumers precisely because they actively revitalize the local community.
