Lifestyle Choices

Talbots Inc. (Hingham, Mass.) has announced plans to have 30 to 35 percent of its stores in “lifestyle centers” – that is, strip malls with green landscaping and old-time village square architecture — by 2004. The specialty apparel retailer currently has about 150 of its 750 stores in these centers.

“Our customer has voted on what type of environment she wants to be in,” says Richard O'Connell Jr., senior vp for real estate at Talbots. “This [style] is a keeper.”

Talbot's isn't the only retailer heading for this outdoorsy alternative to enclosed malls. San Francisco's Williams-Sonoma is placing more than half of its new 2001 stores in lifestyle centers, which usually feature unique cafes and movie theaters. Spiegel Group Inc., of Downers Grove, Ill., plans to put four of seven new stores in the centers this year.

These companies say the new centers offer advantages that traditional malls don't: ease of access for customers, lower occupancy costs, a more intimate average size of 300,000 square feet (as opposed to the typical mall's 1.2 million square feet) and an ability to pop up in affluent neighborhoods without opposition.