In New York, an old cathedral, which has had many reincarnations including a nightclub and a drug rehab center, has been turned into a shopping center.  Limelight Marketplace aims to capture the interest of the cathedral’s history and architecture to make it a destination shopping experience.  According to the New York Times, the effect is questionable but the idea is no doubt a reach for retail innovation.

In another part of New York, Grand Opening, treats retail like art.  The concept is that there is no concept.  Periodically, the long narrow box of a store is completely changed and merchants are rotated like gallery artists.

In Texas, Kuhl-Lipscomb, has made their 70,000 square foot store into a tourist attraction by offering a unique and eclectic mix of wares that are periodically re-merchandised to create a seemingly new environment.

 SlowRetail has compiled a pretty distracting (in that I spent over an hour following they’re links) list of innovative retail concepts from all over the world.  Maybe the next big trend in design is no trend at all.  After the mall and after big-box, maybe people want to be inspired when they shop and have a little experience to show for it.

Big box retailers like Circuit City, Linens n’ Things and Home Depot have vacated mammoth properties, some as large as 103,000 square feet. The LA Times’ James McPherson paints a daunting picture of the communities faced with lost tax revenue and huge facilities that attract vagrants and vandalism. The question becomes what could possibly fill such large, often windowless spaces and will they be able to replace the lost tax revenue.  Uses for the abandoned buildings have included office space, an indoor racetrack, museums, hospitals and even a church.

At Huffington Post, Steve Rosenbaum documents the materialization of retail vacancies on the streets of New York. There, some of the city’s landmark big box stores are closing, making the state of things ever more apparent.

Provided that these vacancies will exist for a while, when the economy does rebound, what could be a viable alternative for buildings this large? The remaining retailers are experimenting with smaller footprints, like Walmart’s Fresh Market. Malls are in peril and shoppers have expressed fatigue with the big box, sterile white shopping environment. Is this the end of an era? Is the supercenter, mall or mega shopping complex gone forever?

Kristina Shevory at The New York Times examines how these retailers are trying on various store formats to create a more convenient and personal shopping experience. 

“In some ways, retailers are going back to their roots, evoking the corner store. At many new stores, personalized service is being emphasized, like explaining the features of a product.”

Target Bullseye Bodega. Scaled down version of big box for Manhattan.

This is definitely not a short term trend. There has been a significant grassroots backlash against urban sprawl. Builders are fast creating mixed-use developments that attract young people who want to live in the city. Tesco has done extensive shopper research on urban format stores and found village stores to be a profitable retail plan in some markets. Sobey’s and other grocers are following suit.

Target experimented with the smaller urban format with the Bullseye Bodega promotion in September. In four different locations around Manhattan, which is devoid of the big box retailer, Target opened small format stores full of discount designer fashion. Open for less than a week, the idea created tremendous buzz, especially amongst fans who were excited to have access to the stores in their neighborhood.

Smaller format stores are also popular among Millenials who want to distance themselves from “corporate” retailers and head for on-line shopping, niche retailers and customizable concepts not found on shelves.

Large footprint stores located near interstates and in suburbs may remain the key driver of overall revenue for big box retailers. However, small footprint stores are increasing in popularity and could become an appropriate response to consumer population shifts and changing shopper behavior.