Stores seek locations near big destinations
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It’s called destination shopping, and many of the new stores seeking success in Metro Orlando during 2017 hope to take more advantage of locations near popular attractions.
Some of the area’s fastest growing retail corridors are centered around new experiences and attractions, such as the northern end of International Drive near Universal Studios or the tourism core farther south near Orange County Convention Center. New attractions are also coming to that area to boost traffic, such as Mario Andretti’s Racing Experience and Topgolf coming in summer.
“People are more likely to be out shopping and eating if they are near an attraction of some kind,” said retail real estate broker Bobby Palta, who works for CBRE. “It’s about experiences now for shoppers.”
County and business leaders have been working on a plan to spur more retail and entertainment development in the booming tourist corridors.
New projects in the works would add hundreds of thousands of and twists.
Orchard Supply Hardware is working to debut in Central Florida with three new stores, one on Turkey Lake Road, one at Orlando Fashion Square and a third in southern Winter Park. A subsidiary of Lowe’s, Orchard Supply’s stores are smaller and are aimed at D-I-Y homeowners.
“We’ll have people there to help out with small projects,” said Orchard Supply district manager David Rosa.
The first on Turkey Lake Road is scheduled to open in the first quarter. Opening dates for the others are not scheduled yet.
Other new retail additions in 2017 include a new Nordstrom Rack store in Winter Park. The retailer has a store near Mall at Millenia and is building a 25,000-square-foot space at Winter Park Square.
That’s the same shopping center that recently opened a new Whole Foods Market.
When that’s not an option, retailers such as Wal-Mart are adapting to on-demand delivery competitors such as Amazon with drive-through grocery pickup. That comes as delivery services continue to ramp up offerings. give them new
Wal-Mart recently opened two new area stores with mobile grocery pickup lanes in the Lake Nona and south Winter Garden areas. It has also converted four existing stores. With this program, customers order online with a computer or on a mobile app. At an appointed pickup time, the groceries are then delivered to the customer’s car. Most new Wal-Mart stores are being designed with the feature; the company has seven Central Florida stores that offer the option.
Retail analyst Marshal Cohen said in-store pickup and sameday delivery are a few signs that customers are starting to put higher value on convenience. Those are some of the problems faced by retailers that have been closing or cutting in the area, such as Sports Authority, The Limited and Sears.
“2017 is going to be a year of transition for retail,” said Marshal Cohen, a retail industry analyst for research group NPD. “There are very few things that people won’t purchase on the internet; even mattresses have moved online.”
Cohen said that to survive, retailers will have to offer unique experiences.
“The best stores are going to find a way to inspire shoppers,” Cohen said. “If you have a product that can be purchased anywhere, you either have to be the cheapest or easiest.”