Kidz Rool the mall

Parents need various facilities in a shopping centre such as somewhere to leave small children under professional care (if only for half an hour), play rooms and playgrounds for older kids, who are more independent, as well as play corners in the shopping arcades themselves. Such amenities prevent youngsters from becoming bored while shopping and offer them the chance to play a little giving them a rest between one shop and another. Attractions in food-court areas are also important for parents to be able to eat in peace while the kids play within their view.Shopping trolleys in the form of cars can be used to cart young children around the corridors and stores and are fun for the kids as well as a boon to parents.

It also needs to be borne in mind that children do not form a homogeneous group. The needs of mums with infants have to be catered for as well as those with small children and the needs of adolescents. In addition to changing and feeding rooms (a lot of shopping centres provide special family rooms) parents with small babies also need a microwave in the food court to warm up milk or jars of baby food as well as a quiet place to rest. In its ‘Child-Friendly Shopping Centres’ report published in 2016, Colliers International also pointed out that parents appreciate centres that do not only offer children’s attractions on a commercial basis but also offer alternatives facilities for entertaining the kids for free.

Large, larger and the largest

Play rooms and playgrounds can be large and significant tenants for shopping centres. The Fikołki play area in Galeria Północna in Warsaw takes up 700 sqm, Leopark in Stary Browar has an area of 600 sqm, Bajkowy Labirynt, which is present in 20 Polish shopping centres, usually leases around 400 sqm, which is a similar area to that normally taken by Jupi Park. Kinderplaneta playrooms, which are present in nearly 40 shopping centres and retail parks all over Poland occupy from 120 sqm to nearly 1,000 sqm, which is the size of its largest playroom in the Manufaktura shopping centre in Łódź. The interiors of children’s play areas are often designed to suit their specific location, usually with regard to the amount of space available. Sometimes even more factors are taken under consideration such as in the case of the Leopark in Poznań, the design of which was created to fit in with the post-industrial character of the Stary Browar centre.

Polish developments might lack such spectacular features as those in the Printemps shopping centre in Shanghai built in 2016 where a giant slide runs from the fifth to the ground floor of the building and the ride lasts for 16 seconds. Even though it looks daunting, it is safe even for four-year-olds. However, there’s still a lot on offer in Polish shopping centre play areas such as slides, climbing walls, rope parks, go-carts, trampolines and ball pools. Multimedia facilities are becoming more and more popular. “We use the latest technology such as projectors and interactive floors,” says Paweł Żuraw, the playground coordinator at Ro-An, which owns the Bajkowy Labirynt brand. “Parents’ expectations are certainly increasing every year. Shopping centres are interested in developing their entertainment for a simple reason: when parents have the option of leaving their children in a safe play area, they will have more time to visit all the outlets, stores and boutiques,” he explains.

Playground attractions need to be paid for, with prices ranging from PLN 12–13 per hour to almost PLN 40 for an entire day, which may be subject not only to location but also the day of the week. Large play areas also often offer places for parents to have a tea or coffee, sit down and watch their children having fun. The play centres may also include additional rooms where birthday parties can be held. A package which includes two or three hours of playing under the supervision of a carer costs around PLN 40 per child. The rooms can also be used to organise educational workshops, such as cookery classes. Very small children can be looked after by a child minder but parents have to pay extra for that. Some shopping centres also offer places where children can be left without any additional charge. For example in MiniPark in the Matarnia shopping centre children can be left to play free of charge but for no longer than two hours and parents must present a receipt for items that were purchased in the centre on the same day.

Education and sport

Large shopping centres might include entertainment and education for the younger ones. But direct competition between such facilities and the standard entertainment offering of a centre is not tolerated, which is why there is a highly varied range of concepts for keeping the children occupied. Some places focus on providing professional child minders, while others concentrate on sports or workshops and education. Polish brand Klockownia, which has branches in Renova and Focus Mall in Piotrków Trybunalski, operates centres based on a new concept. Blocks are treated both as toys as well as a tool for developing spatial awareness. Energi Park, which is a trampoline park in Galeria Pestka in Poznań, is an example of a sports concept. Some shopping centres also include dance schools with classes for children. In Manufaktura in Łódź parents can take their children to Experymentarium for interactive education, or the Jazda Park zone which has mini bowling alleys and video arcades or even to Arena Laser Games and Jupi Park.

Cinemas may also have something to offer for children and their parents. They may organise special screenings for mums with small babies or for children, often combined with competitions and games. The Helios cinema chain has screenings for children in the morning every two weeks. “The cinema’s screening rooms offer attractions for children and every session starts with a competition. The sound is turned down and the lights are dimmed with younger viewers in mind,” says Anna Koczarska from the Helios chain.

Large and small, for cash or for free

Shopping centre owners and managers need to strike a balance between entertainment that costs money and free of charge attractions. Not all of the work can be entrusted to the tenants and a lot of thought is required to develop a family friendly area properly. Many shopping centres organise various attractions for the young on a more or less regular basis: in Galeria Mokotów in Warsaw, children can be left in the care of a child minder every Saturday. The report by Colliers International highlights the Galeria Bronowice and Bonarka shopping centres in Kraków as well as the Ster shopping centre in Szczecin as places that organise sports and arts workshops, exhibitions, film screenings and theatre performances.

As well as large, commercially run play areas there are also smaller, free of charge play areas. These tend to be small places often located in food courts and in the main shopping arcades. They include soft padding, sometimes a simple swing or a slide but also a multimedia screen and they offer the opportunity to have a little break in the shopping. These areas usually include coin-operated kiddie rides that allow children to become a rider, driver or pilot for a few minutes. “We can see growing demand for our services,” says Magdalena Prażmowska from Corners For Kids, a company which creates children’s play corners. “Shopping centres want to stand out, they want to be more family- and child-friendly,” she adds. She also points out that in order to create a successful kids’ corner it is not enough to just have a good idea but it is also necessary to be familiar with official safety regulations. “We do our own designs and we also build the designs by the interior designers who work with the shopping centres, but only after they are certified as safe,” she adds.

Not everything must take place inside a shopping centre, under its roof. Developing the outdoor area near the building or on top on the roof has also been gaining in popularity. One such public playground is next to the Matarnia shopping centre in Gdańsk. A large playground has also been opened next to the Galeria Łomianki mall near Warsaw this year. There is also a playground on the roof of Galeria Północna in Warsaw, opened in September this year along with a summer garden on the roof of the Silesia City Center in Katowice.

Social involvement

A project called the ‘Siemacha Spot in Shopping Centres’ scheme has been set up, which is the only initiative of its kind in Europe. “Children and youths will come to shopping centres whether we like it or not. However, they most often cannot afford what’s on offer commercially,” explains Jolanta Kogut from the Siemacha Association. “In the past children used to play in their backyards, but unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer places where they can meet their peers and do something creative. This is why we call the Siemacha Spot a backyard for a new generation. What we offer is unique not only because of its location but also because of the very high standard of activities organised as well as the modern arrangement and the furnishings,” she says.

Siemacha Spots organise social skill workshops and language lessons. Such centres make it possible to learn to play an instrument and develop mathematical or computer skills. “The classes are free of charge but in exchange we expect our charges to be fully engaged and do what is asked of them. Children don’t just take part in the workshops but they are largely responsible for creating the Siemacha Spot community. They work together to prepare meals and clean the centre.”

The ‘Siemacha Spot in Shopping Centres’ project is also unique because of its triple partnership model. The project is not only organised by the association but also involves support from the local authorities which will commission such a centre as well as from the shopping centre which has to provide a space of between 500–800 sqm on preferential leasing conditions. The association currently runs eleven such Siemacha Spot centres, including five in shopping centres in Tarnów (Gemini Park), Kraków (Bonarka City Center), Rzeszów (Millennium Hall), Kielce (Galeria Korona) and Wrocław (Magnolia Park).

Shopping centres safe for children

The entertainment is only part of what makes a shopping centre child- and parent-friendly. According to Colliers International a ‘family’ centre needs to take into consideration a great variety of factors, such as broader passageways, larger lifts, family parking spaces as well as a number of safety features. Wrist bands with a parent’s phone number are being used more and more frequently. If a child becomes lost in the crowd, he or she is easier to locate because anyone who finds the child will be able to phone the parent straight away. The building’s security staff also need to be prepared and trained for such situations.

lawyer at BCLA Bisiorek, Cieśliński, Adamczewska i Wspólnicy

Paulina Petroniec

legal trainee at BCLA Bisiorek, Cieśliński, Adamczewska i Wspólnicy

The owner of a play area cannot always legally deny responsibility for injury to a child or damage to a child’s property. The majority of shopping centre operators know that shopping centres are not only about shopping. Being aware that parents with children constitute one of the largest groups of customers, malls have found a way to encourage them to come in with attractions for children. The majority of shopping centres currently include quite sizeable play areas where children can spend time while their parents shop. However, before leaving a child under the age of 13 in a play area, you must familiarise yourself with its regulations, particularly in regard to the responsibility for damage caused by children or injuries that occur to children in such an area.

In principle, legal responsibility is subject to whether the owner of the play area provides care or not for the children. If the regulations of the establishment include the provision of childcare or do not exclude such provision for those playing in the play area, the owner will be legally culpable for any damage or injury caused by the behaviour of a minor even if in those same regulations, any such responsibility is denied. If the owner of a play area provides childcare, any regulation denying their responsibility for injury (such as a fracture of the clavicle or a cut) or damage to their property (such as torn clothes) that might occurs on the premises, will be legally void and the parent will be able to sue the owner directly for compensation.

Sylwia Wiszowata-Łazarz

associate director for real estate management at Cushman & Wakefield

Facility managers take great pains to create a so-called unique experience with a range of services for children, who often have a say in the decisions of adult consumers. Regardless of the location and positioning of a centre, it is important to make it child- and family-friendly starting with the interior design, interactive play areas, and organising regular entertainment and educational activities for children. This allows the adults responsible for them to go and shop while their charges are being entertained and cared for in the same place.

Young people are an attractive group of consumers for many businesses – there are a number of shopping centres that position themselves as family-oriented centres, with tenant mixes that concentrate on brands that address the needs of children and their mums while their marketing strategies focus on building up a competitive advantage based on activities for families with children. So-called ‘brand heroes’ with people dressed as the brand mascots associated with a mall have recently become popular as well as regular workshops for mothers with children and even dad zones. The trend has been growing stronger because it is hard to say no to children and businesses can benefit from that.