Retail

This is the first of five blogs from our field trip last Saturday. We went to both parts of the Friendly Center and Four Seasons Mall.

The mid-century Friendly Center has mostly retail stores, with several specialty stores and restaurants. We started our day off at Caribou Coffee and were asked to walk around the area and observe the different types of stores and who they seemed to serve demographically. I think that this area of the Friendly Center serves from college-aged to middle-aged upper working class people. Most of the stores are fairly inexpensive (compared to the ones in the other part of Friendly Center), and there seems to be something for everyone. There is an abundance of parking in the area, with both parking spots in front of the stores and lots out in the empty space. There are pedestrian crosswalks connecting these lots at several points, and they seem very pro-pedestrian. I think the values and goals of this area are to attract more people and be more family-friendly. It is close to many neighborhoods, but not very close to the interstate.



Next, we went to Four Seasons Mall. This is a 3 story mall with tons of stores. While walking around, I observed several different types of stores, kiosks, and eating areas. There is the food court, which offers a cheap option while shopping, or the restaurants, like Ruby Tuesdays. The mall in general seems to be a little less or right at the same level of price as the first part of the Friendly Center. It caters to more groups of people with the variety of stores. It values accessibilty with it's location and the fact that it is enclosed. It has more space to come and hang out than the Friendly Center. The mall isn't close to many neighborhoods, but is very close to the interstate. It is also close to the shopping strips along Lee St.


In the afternoon, we went back to the Friendly Center, but this time visited the lifestyle area. This area includes stores such as Apple, Anthropologie, Coldwater Creek, and White House Black Market. Overall, there are more upper-class and high-scale stores. This area is definitely for those who have a little bit more money to spend. There is more noticable security to protect these businesses. They also seem to value decoration and uniqueness, possibly to attract more customers. There was also an interesting open space where a performance was going on while we were there. This shows the interests in drawing in people and being unique from the other section of the Friendly Center.