Communities throughout the United States are getting an aesthetic update that is creating a comfortable atmosphere for residents and visitors, a CBL & Associates Properties Inc. official says.
Realtors and building industry professionals are calling the new and/or revitalized areas “lifestyle centers,” said Katie Reinsmidt, CBL’s director of corporate communications and investor relations. “The centers are geared toward baby boomers because boomers are looking for convenience.”
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Staff Photos by Kelly Wegel -- Hamilton Corner on Gunbarrel Road features accessible parking and pleasant landscaping.
“It’s an industry-wide trend (CBL) felt was important to incorporate in our centers,” she said, noting that Hamilton Corner on Gunbarrel Road in East Brainerd is one of the Chattanooga-based shopping center company’s lifestyle centers.
“When CBL builds a lifestyle center, we incorporate an anchor store, such as a Barnes & Noble, JCPenney, Dillard’s or Macy’s, and include a nice restaurant with sit-down tables and white tablecloths, and shops such as Ann Taylor and Coldwater Creek,” Ms. Reinsmidt said.
She said people are drawn to the centers.
“Hamilton Corner, for example, is a smaller lifestyle center. It has the facade of a second floor that makes the center look like you’re shopping downtown but without all the traffic,” Ms. Reinsmidt said.
“There are friendly sidewalks and shoppers don’t have to walk into a mall and down a long corridor to get to a store,” she said.
The restaurant in the lifestyle center typically gives waiting customers buzzers so they can visit the other shops while they’re waiting to be seated, Ms. Reinsmidt said. The buzzers sound when seating is available.
The retailers are generally more upscale with higher-end merchandise, she said.
“What makes it a lifestyle center is the facade we put on the outside: stacked stones, a fountain, and convenient front parking so that customers can get close to stores,” Ms. Reinsmidt said.
Many of CBL’s lifestyle centers offer residents a unique shopping environment including open-air pedestrian walkways, eye-catching architectural and design elements, extensive landscaping and a water feature, according to cblproperties.com.
Lifestyle centers bring together outdoor and indoor elements in a visually pleasing manner, Ms. Reinsmidt said.
Local developers, brothers Ken and Byron DeFoor, are taking a lifestyle center to a different level. Their development near Hamilton Place mall, billed as the first of its kind in Tennessee, will be a $100 million-plus mixed-use, self-contained neighborhood, according to a Times Free Press report.
hhgregg, an Indianapolisbased seller of consumer electronics and home appliances, opened recently on the Shallowford Road property and eventually will include hotels, offices, residences, restaurants, stores and public green space. A person will be able to live, work and enjoy recreation in the community without having to leave it, Ken DeFoor said.
Feature writer Karen Nazor Hill covers fashion, design, home and gardening, pets, entertainment, human interest features and more. She also is an occasional news reporter and the Town Talk columnist. She previously worked for the Catholic newspaper Tennessee Register and was a reporter at the Chattanooga Free Press from 1985 to 1999, when the newspaper merged with the Chattanooga Times. She won a Society of Professional Journalists Golden Press third-place award in feature writing for ...
