The American experience of shopping was constantly drawn upon at the conference: an indication of the perceived significance is that around a third of the speakers were from the US or Canada (although only about 8% of the delegates were, while 42% were from the UK).
One of the lessons for the UK delegates at least was on the use of leisure as a draw to shoppers. Shopping as entertainment is not particularly American or even new, according to Ron McCarthy, vice-president sales and marketing with the Toronto-based Forrec Construction. He believes that the future is in the leisure approach though and uses it as an anchor in his schemes.
It might not be new or American but it is certainly something he has done on a scale almost inconceivable here.
Examples are the West Edmonton Mall and the Woodbine Centre in Toronto.
Of West Edmonton Mall, he says the 4m-sq ft mall is far too big for a city of 650,000 — “it ought to be a white elephant but it isn’t”.
The three phase centre on a 75-acre site has what is effectively a permanent indoor funfair. Shoppers, he says, come from Calgary, Vancouver, the Prairies, the Arctic and the US. West Edmonton measures its catchment in thousands of miles, keeping shoppers for two to three days.
He says: “Leisure is a powerful weapon against mail order and electronic shopping. The leisure themes extend to store facades, food courts, bars, restaurants and even community services and themed hotels.”
He said that they will push the retail day to its limits to get maximum use and impact from the mall.
Leisure anchors in retail schemes are not unknown in the UK, although unsurprisingly are on a much smaller scale, and the “multiplex” cinema — pioneered in the US — has now reached Britain. At Milton Keynes AMC Entertainment have developed The Point, our first 10-screen cinema.
York’s Coppergate centre has a unique leisure draw in the Jorvic Viking centre, which uses archaeological remains as part of an exhibition in the basement area.
The project cost was high — £2.65m — but so are the returns and the centre attracted 898,000 visitors to Coppergate in 1985 and will pay off its debts within five years. Although the number of visitors will fall off, Mr Gaynor thinks they will stabilise at around 700,000 pa.
