Power center or big-box center is a term used by developers and retailers to describe a shopping center with typically of gross leasable area that usually contains three or more big box "anchor" retailers and various smaller retailers, where the anchors occupy 75–90% of the total area.
Origins and history
280 Metro Center in Colma, California is credited as the world's first power center. Local real estate developer Merritt Sher opened 280 Metro Center in 1986 as an open-air strip shopping center dominated by big-box stores and category killers. 280 Metro Center was a revolutionary development at a time when retail shopping in North America was dominated by enclosed shopping malls. By 1998, there were 313 power centers in the United States with a combined gross leasable area of ; together, they accounted for over five percent of national shopping center sales. The highest numbers of power centers were in the states of California and Florida.
Canada
In Canada, South Edmonton Common in Edmonton is the largest power centre, and one of the largest open-air retail developments in North America. Spread over, South Edmonton Common has more than of gross leasable area.
Repurposing malls as power centers
In recent years, it has become common for older, traditional shopping malls to:
Some new power center developments have attempted, as have lifestyle centers and regional outdoor malls, to recreate the atmosphere of an old-town Main Street. Stores line streets where cars may drive and where there is limited parking, with much more parking in lots or garages in the back. The "main street" particularly serves to house the smaller stores and chain stores once typically found in malls. An example is Woodbury Lakes in Woodbury, Minnesota—where, according to urbanist website , the developers "dispensed with the integrated anchors and instead plopped down 'Main Street' in the middle of what is otherwise a regional power center". , a vertical power center in Miami
Vertical power centers
Power centers are almost always in suburban areas, but occasionally redevelopment has brought them to densely populated urban areas. In environments where denser development is desirable, a power center may consist of multiple floors, with one or more big-box anchors on each floor, and floors of parking, all "stacked" vertically. Examples:
In Europe, any shopping center with mostly what are called "retail warehouse units" or "big box stores" or "superstores", or larger, is a retail park, according to the leading real estate companyCushman & Wakefield. According to ICSC, what in Europe is classified as a "retail park" would, in the U.S., be classified thusly:
