COLUMN ONE : Making Shopping Malls More Fun : High-tech complexes like the Irvine Entertainment Center will focus on new ways to eat and play, as developers hope to lure a public bored by today’s cookie-cutter approach.
Flip off that big-screen TV and pull yourself out of that Barcalounger. Corporate America has new plans for your leisure time.
It wants you out of the house and back into the malls. And to make sure that you leave that pricey home entertainment center behind, developers are looking toward reinventing a staple of suburban life--the shopping center.
With nearly 20 square feet of retail space for every American, developers have little choice but to abandon their cookie-cutter approach to malls. The new industry buzzwords are “urban entertainment centers” and “location-based entertainment” places where consumers can watch movies on giant 3-D screens, test their mettle in high-tech virtual reality arcades and dine in restaurants where entertainment is as important as the menu.
Traditional malls use department and specialty stores, along with a smattering of restaurants and small movie complexes, to lure consumers who have time and money on their hands.
But the new centers will use massive movie complexes to draw crowds--the way anchor department stores do now, hoping they will stick around to eat, shop and play.
“These are places where people go to see what the hell’s going on,” said industry consultant Harrison Price in San Pedro. “It’s going to be an impulse thing. . . . The secret will be plugging in enough stuff so people will say, ‘I’ve got to go there.’ ”
The new centers are largely a response to a growing fear that “cocooning” consumers will keep holing up at home with big-screen TVs, state-of-the-art sound systems and increasingly sophisticated electronic games.
“There’s been a fundamental change in the way that we use our leisure time,” said Michael S. Rubin, a Philadelphia-based entertainment industry consultant. “The challenge is to pull people away from what’s become an at-home [entertainment] industry.”
Entertainment industry executives have long known their main competition.
“I’ve always said that our biggest opponent isn’t another company,” said Edwards Theatres Chairman James Edwards Sr., 88, who saw his first “flicker” in 1910 in a Pasadena storefront. “It’s the home. We compete against the home.”
Press a developer to explain where Americans will be playing in the future and they point to CityWalk in Universal City, the Shops at the Forum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and the massive Mall of America near Minneapolis.
The three attractions are tailored to meet growing consumer demand for a relatively safe place to enjoy themselves, although the enhanced security that helps create the illusion of a shopping utopia can’t always keep out crime and other real-world problems.
CityWalk’s premise is simple: Cluster shops, restaurants, entertainment venues and movie theaters near a tourist attraction, in this case Universal Studios, so consumers won’t have to drive from place to place.
The Forum Shops offer a veritable who’s who of trendy stores and eateries set in a make-believe world of moving statues and a lighting scheme that gives the illusion of walking through ancient Rome. It encourages free-spending gamblers and their families to shop and gawk--without leaving the grounds.
The Mall of America, a one-of-a-kind attraction, houses hundreds of stores, dozens of restaurants and an indoor amusement park complete with a roller coaster and a Camp Snoopy for children.
Developers are betting that they can use some of the building blocks from those attractions to create the mall of tomorrow and bolster flagging consumer interest in existing centers.
Look for more entertainment, especially high-tech, computer-driven arcades where visitors can fight demons from the 31st Century or speed around “virtual” tracks in computer-controlled cars that bump and grind to create the ultimate racing experience.
Food also will be emphasized, mainly to keep consumers from zooming off somewhere else for dinner. But don’t look for mundane hamburger stands.
Developers are increasingly turning to “signature” restaurants where music, memorabilia and atmosphere are as important as the menu. Some of the new operators include Dive Restaurants, with its high-tech submarine theme, Country Star Restaurants, which offers a glimpse into the lives of leading country music performers, and the Rainforest Cafe in the Mall of America, where diners are surrounded by waterfalls, lush vegetation and exotic birds.
So far, only a handful of entertainment centers are under construction, leading one entertainment company executive to quip that overly cautious developers are “waiting for Disney to do one first.”
Southern California will get its first mall-based urban entertainment center in November, when the Irvine Co. opens the Irvine Entertainment Center, a $50-million, Moroccan-themed attraction under construction at the El Toro Y--where the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways converge.
The center will feature a 21-screen cineplex, which will house the West Coast’s first 3D sight-and-sound Imax theater and four of the nation’s largest traditional movie screens, along with a 100-foot-long snack bar.
Electronic games giant Sega Enterprises Ltd. is building a 15,000-square-foot virtual reality arcade there. It evidently will be patterned after the company’s new two-story arcade in the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where 6,000 customers a day flock to its 200 high-tech attractions.
Rick Evans, president of the Irvine Co.’s Retail Properties Group, says Sega will incorporate similar technology at the Irvine center: “We’re going to have the world’s most exciting motion-based simulator rides and give people more variety than they ever could get at home.”
Planners agree that it’s too early to determine which bits and pieces of CityWalk, Mall of America and the Forum Shops eventually will work in places like Detroit or St. Louis.
And they’re struggling to fit new concepts into existing malls that have lost their allure.
“I’ve spoken at three [entertainment real estate] seminars in the past six weeks to, collectively, 7,000 or 8,000 people, who are all asking the same question,” said Los Angeles developer Sheldon Gordon, whose credits include the Forum Shops. “I’ll modestly say that I’m further along than most, but I don’t know the answer.”
Entertainment Is Top Creator of Jobs
Entertainment is already very big business.
In 1993, Americans spent $341 billion on entertainment products ranging from movies and hockey games to Gameboys and big-screen televisions.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic reports that entertainment was the nation’s biggest job creator from November, 1994, through July, 1995, accounting for 40% of new jobs. In California, employment in amusement and recreation rose to 190,000 in July, up 7,000 from a year earlier.
Entertainment-oriented conferences aimed at developers are popping up around the country. When its 1994 entertainment gathering in Los Angeles unexpectedly drew an overflow crowd, the Urban Land Institute promptly scheduled a second session for next month.
The sessions are providing enticing glimpses into how technology is changing the retail environment.
At a forum sponsored by the Ignacio, Calif.-based Entertainment Real Estate Forum, executives from the Mall of America unveiled a long-range plan to double the center’s size. The mall, which already boasts more retail space than many small towns, won’t be adding more storefronts. Instead, it will add virtual reality-based games and attractions, a massive indoor aquatic park, more restaurants, a health care facility and hotel rooms.
Consultant Rubin predicts that the next generation of entertainment centers--large projects in urban areas and smaller developments in suburban locations--will evolve into a $4-billion to $8-billion industry within a decade, adding to the $880 billion in sales at traditional malls last year.
The pioneers have already staked out their claims in Irvine, Arcadia and Los Angeles. They also are looking at locations in Victorville and Temecula, where they are designing attractions that would draw from Southern California’s heavily populated urban areas.
Although each of the projects claims to be unique, they all borrow heavily from the traditional shopping mall.
“It’s a safe place for pedestrian traffic, where you can mingle and look at each other,” said USC anthropology professor G. Alexander Moore. “You can promenade and walk around, and do a little shopping as well. It works beautifully.”
‘Looking for the Mysterious Black Box’
For now, experts predict that the new breed of entertainment centers is likely to remain heavily dependent on America’s long love affair with motion pictures.
That’s because huge cineplexes with 20 or more screens can deliver people to the site, just as an anchor department store delivers them to a regional mall, said Wayne R. Wilson, vice chairman of Economic Research Associates, a Los Angeles consulting firm.
“I keep hearing people say they’re looking for the mysterious black box, the secret that will take virtual reality and apply it to [retail],” said Evans of the Irvine Co. “But for me, the black box is the movies, and the software for that has been coming out of Hollywood for more than 60 years.”
But developers know that the public is becoming increasingly enamored with virtual reality arcades, motion simulator rides and other high-tech alternatives. Many believe the computer-driven rides hold the promise of restoring excitement to increasingly ho-hum shopping malls.
Developers “sense blood and everyone’s running toward it,” said Peggy Meehan, spokeswoman for the Urban Land Institute.
Indianapolis mall operator Melvin Simon told conferees at a recent seminar that high-tech entertainment might be the cure for tired malls and shopping centers.
Companies such as Burbank-based Virtual World, which has opened 20 storefronts worldwide, including one in Costa Mesa’s Triangle Square, are at the forefront of high-tech amusement. The self-described digital theme park uses computer technology to turn customers into everything from time travelers to gladiators.
Suburban malls could use a helping hand. While they’re still powerful magnets for consumers, they’re losing some of their allure.
During the early 1980s, the average mall shopping trip lasted 90 minutes, according to Stillerman Jones & Co., an Indianapolis market research company. But people now typically spend a little more than an hour per trip.
Critics blame that drop on the proliferation of look-alike malls, and the fact that the number of department stores is being pared by an ongoing retail industry consolidation. Consumers also are being wooed by Wal-Mart and other discount chains.
“People are bored to death with typical malls,” Gordon said. “Everyone can see the handwriting on the wall: We have to do something fresh and different. And what’s fresh and different? Entertainment.”
But the new breed of malls will remain close cousins to traditional malls. Both are designed to lure consumers and give them opportunities to spend. The difference is that the traditional malls still focus on shopping, while entertainment centers view retail as just another part of the experience.
Evans of the Irvine project says: “We’ll have just a dash of retail to make browsing fun.”
Huge, Interactive Sporting Goods Store
Modesty aside, Los Angeles developer Gordon, who innovated the Caesars Palace shops, may indeed be plotting the next generation of shopping experiences.
Gordon is transforming an empty 600,000-square-foot shopping mall in Scottsdale, Ariz., into a huge, interactive sporting goods store.
Golfers will be able to test oversized drivers on fairways with real grass. Fishermen will cast and tennis players will smack tennis balls. Through the magic of some high-tech wizardry, gutsy shoppers will be able to take a pass from Wayne Gretzky and make a shot on goal against a real-life goalie “who’s in your face bad-mouthing you,” Gordon said.
“My daughter’s generation got involved with interactive, and that’s the whole key,” Gordon said. “Consumers nowadays want to be involved. They don’t want to be an observer, they want to be a participant.”
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New Entertainment Horizon
Urban entertainment centers, malls that focus more on fun than on shopping, will debut in Orange County in November. The Irvine Entertainment Center, a $50-million, Moroccan-themed enterprise, brings a group of attractions headlined by an Imax theater. Center attractions:
Imax 3-D Theater: The West Coast’s first 3-D cinema; has six-story screen and seats 500. The only other one like it is in New York’s Lincoln Center.
Edwards Theater Complex: Largest in the world, with 106,000 square feet and 21 screens. Four theaters seat 600, others 250. Four smaller theaters will show art films.
Sega City: Interactive video arcade will include virtual reality games patterned after arcade in Las Vegas’ Luxor hotel; more than 60 attractions, including Daytona Special virtual reality auto racing.
Retail and Dining: Stores and restaurants will include county’s largest Barnes & Noble with connecting Diedrich coffee bar, Blockbuster Music, Out Takes (digital photo studio). Four major restaurants will include Wolfgang Puck Cafe, Champps Americana.
Source: Irvine Co.; Researched by JANICE L. JONES/Los Angeles Times
Entertainment in Irvine
What’s going in
1. Edwards Cinema and Imax 3-D Theater
2. Restaurants
A: P.F. Chang’s China Bistro
B: Wolfgang Puck Cafe
C: Champps Americana
D: Bertolini’s Authentic Trattoria
3. Retail: Barnes & Noble Bookseller, Blockbuster Music, Sega City
4. Oasis Food Court
Source: Irvine Co.
Mega-Malls in the Works
The Irvine Entertainment Center will be the first urban entertainment center to open in Southern California. Other proposals:
* Arcadia: Santa Anita Realty Enterprises has proposed a $100-million project at its racetrack that would include an entertainment and retail district about the size of Disneyland’s Main Street, an Imax theater, 25 traditional screens and a virtual reality game center.
* Downtown: A Pittsburgh-based company has proposed a $150-million, 14-acre “super block” in Downtown Los Angeles that would blend a state-of-the art professional sports arena with a massive movie complex, restaurants, virtual reality games and retail stores.
* Temecula: Longtime Broadway producer and Blockbuster Pavilion co-developer Zev Buffman envisions a $60-million nostalgia-themed performing arts, rodeo and entertainment center in the Riverside County city. The attraction would be built by Irvine-based Fluor Corp.
* Victorville: The Roy Rogers museum near Victorville is seeking financing for a complex that would blend the museum’s historical heritage with high-powered technology.
