We are on a routine tour, determined to visit as many pioneers retailers of the future as we can, and I had the chance to spend some more time at FUNAN mall – reopened in Singapore last June, after a 3 year-long renovation – still trying to make up my mind about it and shape some learnings on new formats.
The visit inspired a few questions about innovative retail concepts and sustainable ‘disruption’. …
Funan is located in the proximity of other 5 malls – including the mighty Raffles City, 8 minutes’ walk away – in a city-state sporting more than 160 shopping complexes.
In this new incarnation it features a fresh and courageous approach to the architecture of the place, avoiding excessive gimmick. Sinuous corridors and mezzanines sections break the classic floor organization while inviting the visitor to a space largely inspired by a commercial version of the phalanstery – a mixed-use, community-shared environment.
The venue feels aspirational, modern, inviting – a ‘new’ space. A welcoming mall ideally intended for the population of its office towers and service apartments together with, I imagine, a neighbourhood cycling to work and hiking during the lunch break.
And then, one wonders: what happened to the tenant mix? Why not a bold, strong, identifiable proposition?
On brand: the IT survivors, the fashionable co-working space, the extraordinary fitness, the corollary couple of sports shops, the cycling, camera and hobbies stores, the stationery, and the magnificent urban farm on the roof. Of course, food is needed as a catalyst. A movie theather is nice to have and probably helps supporting the restaurants in the evening hours. Even the sewing store makes sense in a creative world.
And yet, the OL fashion floor? Mattresses?
Obviously, this is an uninformed, probably wrong opinion, we have not seen data. Nevertheless, in years of patronizing the decrepit Funan Digital Life mall, one could have imagined it served an existing, very devoted community passionate about its hobbies.
Crafters, repairers, gamers, early adopters of the new.
A nerdy, often under-served, clientele of informed customers that, granted, in today’s storytelling may not be perceived as sexy as a brand ’empowering’ women, and yet still has a great audience of multi-gendered, young and grownups who would go crazy for, say, an indigenous Razer gaming centre, a manga collection gallery, a chess or mahjong showroom-cum-club, or, why not, a piercing parlour. Patrons with enough self-care and self-improvement enthusiasm to linger around using the gym, visit a dignified bookstore, learn about fresh nutrition and buy the latest sneakers.
If this geeks community did exist and survives today in the city, would it continue to patronize Funan in its new life? Would a new community be built to replace it? What does a community at the centre of a ‘creative intersection’ look like?
Re-visiting FUNAN, made me realize once more how, during recent years, in our line of work there seems to be the need to be ‘disruptive’ at all costs, sometimes not considering that innovation often comes from a masterly improvement of what ‘already is’.
True: old retail has issues, but not everything is bad and passé’.
A big anchor can be replaced by competitors – together with the vivacious ecosystem they bring along – through creative rent modeling, or just lower rents.
Most importantly, in the era of digital integration driven by ‘tribes’ and micro-interests , in cities over populated by malls and real estate developers – who do not seem to show any sign to stop building new ones – would it make sense, at least, to focus on more SPECIFIC IDENTITIES?
Everything looks alike. One-for-all does not work anymore.
Sustainable communities – which include both the sellers and the buyers – are organic entities that tend naturally to shape and survive over time around authentic, cohesive, content-dense identities. They don’t come in a pop-up format.
Perhaps we all need to be more courageous: own an idea, flaunt an identity, stick with one of the ‘tribes’ hiding in plain sight and obsessively serve that community and its culture for what it is, rather than what we aspire it to be….
A small, temporary sacrifice of one’s ‘creative vanity’ in recognition of what has been working for decades, if anything, for the egoistic purpose of taking advantage of the consolidated traffic, avoiding the painful exercise of building new audiences, and coping with the killing competition.
Would that be too risky? Is it not realistic to commit to one direction? Would that erode the rent profit?
Check out the T-SITES in japan, born from an enclave of music-obsessed, and blossomed into cultural meccas that thrive in a digital world and now command high rents to ‘guest tenant’…13 sites – and counting – attracting locals and tourist alike.
Forget the alleged on-line ‘menace’.
The new retail mantra should recite: BE COURAGEOUS, OR DIE.