The home-themed mall, opening outside Washington, D.C., hopes to attract a new generation of customers and investors.
Off I-95 in fast-growing Stafford County, Virginia, developers are planning a 300,000-square-foot "destination" mall centered on the home and home goods. According to commercial real-estate site Bisnow, Home Centers USA is on "the cutting edge" of retail and real-estate trends.
The company hopes to attract a new type of "avant-garde" real-estate investor by "turning the landlord-tenant relationship on its head." The mall will have no anchor store, and rather than renting out space, merchants will buy retail condos that they can use flexibly.
On the consumer side, the mall takes advantage of the county's growing population, particularly targeting millennials with its 400 small stores, performance stage, and "do-it-yourself workstations." A project spokesperson describes it thus:
“It’s a large, destination product … It’s not going to be where teenagers go to hang out. It’s meant for a specific crowd and a specific need for that crowd.”
FULL STORY: THE FIRST HOME-THEMED MALL IN AMERICA IS COMING TO STAFFORD COUNTY, VA
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