Last year when visiting Braddock, PA with Habitat for Humanity I came across a
colorful shipping container that caught my eye. The obvious sign “Free Store”
was posted and painted on the exterior. Loving all things retail and all things
free I was drawn in. The store ended up being a great story. The pop-up is one
part of the ongoing progress to rebuild the city that lost 90% of its
population. (Read more here: http://www.freestore15104.org/).
While Pop-Ups are not a new idea, they continue to be strong
solutions for brands large and small at all market levels. I love Pop-Ups.
The
Tiffany Subway Car brought a new look to an exclusive brand that allowed it to
be playful without losing their identity. http://bit.ly/1utrYUW
Where I find pop-ups to be most intriguing are where they
act as Incubators. A great example of this is the Somerset Collection’s “City
Lofts” project in Detroit, taking steps and making the bold move of setting up permanent shops in the re-emerging city.
I believe a missed opportunity for pop-ups are in our
regional shopping centers. Current leasing agreements put the pressure on
brands to do the heavy lifting with design and construction. This makes perfect
sense for well established brands. However, many small companies that have a
large web base brand following are considering the move to bricks and mortar.
They lack experience and revenue to get off the ground. A partnership with a
developer under a pop-up model may be the best of both worlds.
The developer
could have a standard box that a brand could lease for 6 months. This could, in
turn, develop a long term lease as a kiosk or translate into an in-line store.
As developers see a need to fill retail space in a growing online shopping
world, the challenge is on the leasing teams to rethink how a deal gets done
and take a few proven risks to start the next generation of retail within their
centers. A great place to start is with food. The food scene is exploding especially
in the states. Many local food and beverage brands are taking the attention of
every shopper today. Allowing some of these local brands to work as a ‘test
kitchen’ in a center may be a great way to refresh the outgoing food court
experience. These bring variety and options to the already sophisticated
shopper that is walking right past the traditional offerings of shopping mall
food.
The pop-up as incubator may not be the long term solution to
gather the attention of the next gen shopper, but it may very well be the
temporary stepping stone to forecast "what’s next?"
Adam Pew
Senior Designer|Partner