Morphing into malls

Let’s start with children’s play areas and kiddy corners. These are now a permanent feature of large shopping centres and their property managers are constantly trying to improve them. They are places where you can leave your kids in a play area under professional care and finish off your shopping instead of dragging them unwillingly around all the shops. In a kiddy corner, children can draw, play with toys or watch cartoons. And they can act as a superb draw for parents with young children, as the owners of such centres know very well. For example, Greenman Poland has over the last five years built up a portfolio of convenience centres – Nowe Czyżyny (in Kraków), Nowe Bielawy (Toruń) and Nowa Górna (Łódź) – and in each of them it has set up a relaxation area and a play area. You can also find kiddy corners in individual stores, generally large drug stores and supermarkets. But now it seems that such amenities for children are making their debuts in retail parks. At Glinianka, about 30 km south of central Warsaw, work is underway on the opening of a Fikołki play area, where a kindergarten is also to open under the same name. “This is the first appearance of such a concept in a retail park,” explains Katarzyna Zielińska, the marketing and PR manager of Redkom Development. Along with the children’s play area, there will be four classrooms covering an area of 600 sqm, each suitable for up to 15 children. The opening is planned for Q3 this year.

The surroundings of retail parks, meanwhile, are also growing in importance. Green space with rest and recreation areas is not just used by shoppers and not only during business hours. Glinianka features a beautiful green area with a lake on its grounds as well as a beach-ball court, a playground and park benches. All of this is also used by locals on non-shopping days. In Ozimska Park in Opole, another of Redkom’s properties, there is even a public trampoline area. But recreation is not only important for children, as fitness clubs are also being added to the tenant mix of retail parks.

Not so quick anymore?

But does adding such amenities to retail parks and convenience centres put their advantages at risk? That is, could all these added distractions lengthen the shopping stay and make it less quick and convenient? “It’s certain that retail parks are going to be more extensive in the future because the need for them is high. In my opinion, there’s no chance that adding new services will erode their identity,” insists Katarzyna Zielińska of Redkom. Michał Masztakowski, the head of the retail agency at Cushman & Wakefield, agrees: “Retail is the basic service offered by retail parks and even when an owner decides to diversify the tenant mix, bringing newcomers in from the outside will only strengthen the basic role of such a centre. We cannot talk about any erosion in its identity but only about further modifying the centre to meet local needs,” he explains.

According to Cushman & Wakefield’s recent ‘UX Retail in Poland. Polish People Talk about Building Retail Experiences’ report, a retail park is above all a place where shopping is convenient and the prices are low. This is crucial for around two-thirds of the shoppers in these centres. Recreation is much more important for those who spend more time there. The shopping is just one factor, and 60 pct of those who were surveyed stated that recreation was an important part of visiting a shopping centre.

“At the moment the convenience sector is mainly supplementing its tenant mix with pro-footfall brands that are inter-generational and well-recognised by shoppers, as such services provide fertile ground. The kind of shopping convenience that retail parks and convenience centres offer is also important. They are not huge malls that require people to devote a few hours to their shopping but compact centres that fit into the everyday lives of working Polish people,” argues Karolina Nitowska, the leasing director of Greenman Poland. So, it appears that shopping centres and retail parks are not in direct competition with each other but instead fulfil different needs. “Retail parks will normally appear in locations where there is no need to build a shopping centre – and even in places where there are such big centres, retail parks will nevertheless provide complementary services,” points out Michał Masztakowski.

Dinner with dessert

The data also shows that retail park shoppers are eating out there more often. “Retail parks close to tourist attractions can quite easily extend their services with the odd café or restaurant, We are also seeing new parks designed to play an important role in the local community, as places for people to meet up,” explains Michał Masztakowski of C&W. Katarzyna Zielińska of Redkom also stresses the importance of social factors. “With our Glinianka and Ozimska parks, we knew at the design stage that our additional services were going to make us stand out. We have recognised this added value both in terms of new brands and services, which are still very much underdeveloped in retail parks. Together with areas designated for rest and recreation, this also includes the inclusion of food and beverages,” she explains. Work is currently underway at Ozimska Park on the opening of two restaurants: Populo Pizza&Pasta and Sphinx, while the latter restaurant chain is also soon to appear in Glinianka.

Despite the increasing convergence of the services offered by shopping centres and retail parks, retail parks remain the better option for shoppers with little time – even though they are finding themselves spending more time in them than they once did. “Having a direct entrance or entrances still differentiates retail parks from shopping centres and gives them an advantage. Shopping in retail parks takes longer than it did years ago, when the first of these centres were built and they only had a few tenants. But our centres have dozens more retail and service units, and you can’t do that much shopping in a quarter of an hour. Shoppers also expect more space to relax in as well as somewhere to meet family and friends for a meal,” explains Katarzyna Zielińska.

Not only for the penny-pinchers

Retail parks were not so long ago considered the budget option, as their brands were tailored to less affluent or more prudent consumers. In centres like these, there’s not much point in seeking out premium brands; but shopping habits and property managers are gradually beginning to change. “Brands like Pepco, which were typical for retail parks, are now so popular that they are appearing in large shopping centres. Of course, it used to be said that retail parks had nothing to offer for the wealthier shopper, which is why their ranges were made up of economy brands. But these have, however, become well-recognised and Polish people like them, so now it’s hard now to argue that affluent shoppers never visit stores like Dealz or Biedronka,” points out Katarzyna Zielińska of Redkom.

And, according to Michał Masztakowski, retail parks are no longer just the domain of small towns or city outskirts. “Retail parks have become a highly varied format. They can be located in large cities as well as in small towns and they can also function as the main retail centre for many different towns at the same time. This has obviously had an influence on the services they are able to offer. After all, the needs of a small community are very different from those of a large city; so what’s crucial here is their catchment. The greater the catchment area, the more likely different types of services that will be provided,” he explains. However, Katarzyna Zielińska insists that although the locations of retail parks are very varied, they are important when it comes to the local competition. Small towns probably don’t have shopping centres and retail parks are the obvious response to local needs. “But when it comes to large cities where there are shopping centres, retail parks will be faced with competition. I’m certain that in such areas, large shopping centres will have to slice up and share out the catchment cake with retail parks,” she believes. For Karolina Nitowska, it is her company’s current expansion of its retail park network that has been driving its growth – after all, Greenman Poland took the decision to convert Nowe Bielawy and Nowa Górna into family convenience hubs. “Two new retail parks were built in the centre of Toruń and one in Łódź. The centres that were created in this way complement what’s offered by shopping centres and the synergy thus created improves the footfall,” she claims.

All of those we spoke to brought up one other interesting feature of retail parks and convenience centres when it comes to expanding their services: the lack of common space makes it much easier to build up the centres to accommodate new services without significantly disrupting the operations of other stores. However, they were all rather reticent when it came to predicting the appearance of the new services that might emerge in such centres. There’s no talk of co-working space or cultural facilities making their appearance. For now, retail park owners are not so willing to experiment in this way, and so the amenities that are being added to retail parks are likely to continue to be from just a few tried and tested fields.

Katarzyna Zielińska spoke to us before the recent sale of Glinianka. On April 16th, Redkom announced that the centre in Łubna had been sold to CEE-Big Europe. For further details, click here.