THE FUTURE OF RETAIL IS REGENERATIVE A NEW REGENERATIVE RETAIL MIXED-USE MODEL

Anew retail landscape is emerging, driven by changing demographics and evolving customer desires. Generation Z and millennials seek more than just economic exchange – they crave connection, knowledge, meaning, community, sustainability, and immersive experiences. Regenerative retail is about putting back more than you take out, it goes beyond sustainability, it’s about creating a sense of place and community. Regenerative retail and mixed-use precincts are essential for future-proofing developer investments and meeting future customer expectations. Developers must understand the importance of embracing these regenerative principles to stay relevant and successful in a rapidly changing and evolving market.

As the Middle East retail industry matures, we find that future and current customers will have needs that lend more towards enlightened selfinterest in areas of personal well-being, environmental awareness, positive commercial exchange, and the desire to learn and feel proud about their culture and community. A mixed-use retail town centre experience provides the evolutionary platform for growing with new customers as they search for meaning and connection beyond the retail experience.

How has it worked in Australia? Brickworks in Melbourne and Rouse Hill in Sydney are successful current examples that demonstrate the power of integrating regenerative practices into retail centres. Brickworks showcases sustainability through energy production, closed-loop recycling, cultural narratives, and landscapes in a retail mixed us setting. Rouse Hill created a town centre with economic, social, cultural, and ecological anchors. Other examples include the development of Dubai Creek and Melbourne Central, where success is similarly achieved through the integration of cultural overlays and distinct precincts within their given centres. Pre-Covid Rouse Hill was one

GILBERT ROCHECOUSTE Founder & Managing Director Village Well

Gilbert Rochecouste is recognised as one of the world’s leading Retail and Placemaking visionaries. His innovative ideas and thinking have helped Melbourne become the world’s most liveable city for 7 years running as well as making Chadstone the best and most successful shopping centre in the southern hemisphere. Gilbert was the first to introduce Placemaking to the Middle East and training in Dubai and Oman. He has successfully worked with and repositioned over 2000 cities, towns and mixed-used shopping centres in the last 30 years.

of the highest performing retail centres in sales and foot traffic due to its curated and unique indoor/outdoor spaces. Melbourne Central became the highest performing mixed-use shopping centre in the southern hemisphere (measured through ROI and sales per square metre). Through its retail curation and deep understanding of future customer needs the centre has become a highly successful precinct and a city destination in its own right. Moreover, all these projects simultaneously demonstrate the potential for creating unique and meaningful experiences, by curating place-based environments and catering to the diversifying needs of customers.

In the future, we must learn to embrace these regenerative principles and adopt a holistic approach to placemaking in early development. Developers need to recognize that a centre’s economic viability rises and falls with its ability to provide social, cultural, ecological, civic, and even spiritual experiences for their customers. This entails adopting a new management philosophy of place curation where distinct / immersive experiences are curated for specific customer segments that allows their participation in social, cultural, environmental, and economic exchange, and learning.

Successful enlightened retail developers value both the hardware and software when designing and activating their centres and understand the value of a customer led practice, that puts people and place first. At Village Well, we work with future thinking developers around the world who understand the potential of mixed-use precincts and their ability to attract and retain customers through immersive experiences and communityfocused designs. From the inception of a development, to long after it is built, we help to integrate civic and cultural anchors, foster a need for sustainability, and prioritize consumers closely linked to the area of development. This is how we are differentiating our retail centres from others and providing a competitive advantage.

Here are 5 steps that we have utilised to bolster the developments of strong performing retail centres:

1. Have a compelling regenerative place vision and essence and principles that put people and place first.

2. Develop a retail curation management model to partner and evolve with your customers. Provide opportunities for retailers to become retail curators and activators.

3. Think of a single development as a town centre that provides all necessities for humans to thrive; accommodation, commercial, learning, entertainment, leisure, civic and culture. Develop a new set of civic and cultured anchors that allows your customers to linger longer, to grow and learn, feel a sense of pride and stronger sense of belonging to their place, ultimately leading to increase in sales and customer satisfaction. The goal is to increase the lovability of the centre!

4. Create a heart and allow malls to become more like streets and laneways.

5. Create new everyday rituals that go beyond just the retail experience.

We urge all developers to incorporate regenerative practices from the early stages of planning and design. By creating regenerative retail mixed-use precincts, developers can future-proof their investments, meet customer expectations, and contribute positively to communities and the environment. It is not a choice, but a necessity. We must embrace this blue ocean strategy and realize that doing good is not just a responsibility, but a platform for success in the future of retail. For more info, visit www.villagewell.org