Into Outdoors

Built on “125 acres of English countryside,” a new mall will let you go shopping and fishing at the same time, reports Peter Evans in The Wall Street Journal (2/20/13). The IntoOutdoors mall “combines traditional stores with outdoor activities such as two fishing lakes, a cycle track for casual riders and a skateboard park. It uses entertainment to lure customers to shopping centers, then keep them there all day and keep them spending, rather than losing business to online-shopping sites.”

“We’re trying to make a living experience, rather than just a retail one,” says Simon Tothill, director of the mall, a $54 million project “scheduled to open in the fall of 2014 some 45 miles northwest of Oxford Bristol.” Says Simon: “If you come here, you’re going to stay for a day or even longer and you’re going to have a great time. That’s increasingly what people want.” This trend toward all-day malls actually originated in the US, “where it isn’t unusual for malls to include doctor and dentist offices, as well as food halls and entertainment options.”

Camille Waxer, a developer, says the lifestyle malls fill an important void. “We’re trying to make sure our leisure offer gives people something they want in their lives, but that they haven’t got right now,” she says. Robert Noel of Land Securities, a commercial property company, adds that while people may not be shopping as often, they “are traveling farther, and spending more time and money when they do … Retail is not dead,” says Robert. “It’s changing.”