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| Ardmore's Suburban Square Getting A Facelift |
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 by: Rebel - Havertown, PA
started: 09/26/11 2:11 pm | updated: 09/26/11 2:11 pm |
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Ardmore's Suburban Square, in the midst of a $1.5 million makeover has owners betting it will put it back on the cutting edge of retail.
On track for an October opening - the goal of the project aims to convert the 80-tenant shopping plaza, which opened in 1928, into more of what urban planners call a "lifestyle center."
Kimco Realty Corp. is hoping customers will linger in the spruced up courtyard, which will feature a restaurant with outdoor seating, valet parking, and drop-off service.
In front of Macy's will be a customer drop-off, and evening and weekend valet parking for a to-be-determined restaurant.
Eventually, the valet service will be available to shoppers during the holidays, when cars clog the streets of the surrounding neighborhood.
Lifestyle center: the buzzword for retail complexes that sport restaurants and fountains, movie theaters and gardens.
There will not be a theater at Suburban Square, but Kimco Realty Corp. is hoping customers will linger in the spruced up courtyard, which will feature a restaurant with outdoor seating, valet parking, and drop-off service.
A 2010 consumer survey showed that shoppers "wanted to see more energy in the courtyard," said Mark Bachus, Suburban Square's general manager, "and that's what we're trying to provide."
Stephen Hoch, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School who specializes in retailing, said one advantage for Suburban Square was the presence of trendy shopping destinations, including Apple, Urban Outfitters, and Trader Joe's. "It's pretty pleasant," he said. "They have some cool stores."
One obstacle is Suburban Square's relatively small footprint - just 370,000 square feet of leasable space, less than half the size of, say, Plymouth Meeting Mall, and hemmed in by Ardmore's urban core.
"King of Prussia is big, and it's overwhelming," said Bachus, who was director of marketing for the country's second-largest mall until two years ago. Suburban Square "attracts local shoppers on a different level, they're meeting friends for lunch or bringing their kids to play in the courtyard."
Kimco Realty, a real estate investment trust, calls itself the owner of "North America's largest portfolio of neighborhood and community shopping centers." It bought Suburban Square four years ago. The center has been renovated and upgraded before, most recently when a section was added to accommodate Trader Joe's and the relocated Ardmore Farmers Market.
Bachus said sales were up 4 percent last year, but the economic slowdown has led to the recent closing of several well-known tenants.
The list of the newly departed includes Talbots, the women's apparel retailer that recently announced plans to shut 110 stores nationwide; Coach handbags and accessories; Touche, another women's clothing retailer; and Pierre Deux, a French home-goods store. Priscilla of Boston, the upscale wedding retailer, will join that list when the entire 16-store chain closes Dec. 31.
Bachus said that several stores were opening, including Accessories by Anthropologie, and that occupancy by the holiday season would be more than 93 percent.
The hope is that the new courtyard and other amenities will bring added foot traffic into 2012.
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