Entertaining Development

The 1990s saw the introduction of entertainment as a hot new shopping center type. But as is often the case with new retail concepts, experimentation and market realities led to some unexpected results. While stand-alone retail entertainment centers are still being created in specialized urban or faux-urban locations, they have not taken over the retail world in the way some originally envisioned. Instead, the impact has been more subtle and broad based. Even the terms used to describe retail entertainment have changed. What once were called urban entertainment centers are often referred to now as retail entertainment developments, lifestyle entertainment centers, destination developments, or entertainment-enhanced retail environments. In some cases, though entertainment is present at these developments, it is taken for granted and not mentioned at all.

...These entertaining environments, today’s version of retail entertainment, are being successfully introduced, integrated, and sustained as an essential component of an impressively wide range of development types: new multiuse communities and town centers; repositioned strip centers and regional shopping malls; main street projects and urban mixed-use developments; sports facilities, museums, and casinos; historic and cultural districts; and downtowns (urban and suburban), waterfronts, and neighborhood commercial districts."