Why Kids’ Entertainment Is Becoming the New Mall Anchor
As the retail landscape continues to evolve, many commercial real estate owners are searching for new ways to breathe life into struggling malls and shopping centers. At EJR Group, we’re seeing firsthand how family-focused entertainment concepts are becoming a key strategy in mall redevelopment.
Several forces are driving this shift.
First, the rapid growth of e-commerce has eroded traditional retail. To remain relevant, malls need to offer experiences that simply can’t be replicated online. Family entertainment provides exactly that — an in-person outing that brings parents and kids into physical spaces.
Second, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the decline of department stores and apparel chains that historically served as anchor tenants. With many of these large boxes now vacant, landlords and developers are rethinking how to reposition these spaces to drive traffic and create new energy within shopping centers.
One of the most compelling solutions has been kids’ and family entertainment concepts.
Concepts like Round1 and Kids Empire are expanding rapidly across the country. While many Kids Empire locations open in neighborhood shopping centers, malls are increasingly adopting these family-entertainment uses to replace traditional retail and drive repeat visits.
This entertainment use creates longer dwell times, encourages repeat visits from families, and often leads to additional spending across dining and retail tenants throughout the property.
At EJR Group, we are currently working on a Sears repositioning project in Ventura that reflects this shift. The goal is to transform the former department store box into a family-oriented entertainment destination. Kids Empire and Round1 have already signed leases, and we are currently working on securing an additional kids’ entertainment tenant for the project.
Across the country, mall owners are increasingly turning to experiential tenants like these to activate large retail spaces and bring consistent family traffic back to their centers. As traditional department stores continue to fade, kids’ entertainment is emerging as a powerful new driver of mall foot traffic and community engagement.
