Regional Shopping Centers Description and Design

The tenant profiles of regional centers differ little from those of the super- regional malls. The tenants in regional malls paying the highest rent and having the highest sale’ volume per square foot of tenant area are also similar to the tenants of the super-regional malls. Many tenants occupy very little square footage and have relatively low actual sales volume.

The term regional shopping center also can apply to very large strip shopping centers. The term strip center generally refers to a shopping center with a single line of tenants or single-side design, in contrast to a mall in which shops face one another across a pedestrian area. A regional shopping center features one or more regional or major department stores, each at least 100,000 square feet in size. The strip center may also feature a food store, which is seldom found in malls. Strip designs for regional centers are most often found where inclement weather would not deter the pedestrian traffic necessary between the anchor tenants and the local tenants.

The term power center denotes a regional strip center of unusual size. Often 300,000 to 500,000 square feet or more, these huge centers feature a preponderance of anchor tenants with less than 15 percent local tenants. They often combine off-price or home-improvement customer appeal.