Mall Owner Creates New Lab Concept

This weekend mall owner Macerich (Salt Lake City) will debut a creative new concept called BrandBox that will do double duty, filling its vacant spaces and giving new brands a brick-and-mortar outlet.

The first location will be at Tysons Corner Center outside Washington, D.C., where it will house six brands that will run for a period of six to 12 months, according to CNBC. Each brand will have a mini-storefront within an 11,000-square-foot space, where shops will rotate throughout the year.

The mall owner will provide shopfitting materials, such as fixtures, as well as data on foot traffic and RFID tagging as part of the brands’ monthly rent. Marketing and staffing services will also be available.

The concept could be one that benefits mall owners by filling some of the 140 million square feet that has been shuttered across U.S. malls this year alone.