Jessica Brice

Bloomberg

NEW YORK — US retailers and developers of shopping centres are building fewer traditional malls in favour of "lifestyle centres" as the habits of consumers change, a guest on PBS’s Wall Street With Fortune show says.

"When you go shopping these days, you don’t just go to a department store," Kurt Barnard, president of Retail Forecasting, said on Friday.

"You go to discount stores — Wal-Mart, Target, low-price stores such as Kohl’s. You don’t find those in shopping malls."

Barnard said American shoppers were increasingly shunning traditional malls, which are usually enclosed and anchored by major department stores.

Instead, they are going to lifestyle centres that combine open-air shopping with parks, street-side parking, apartments, restaurants and entertainment.

Retailers also find lifestyle centres attractive. Shoppers spend an average of $84 an hour at such centres, compared with $54 at traditional malls.

Lifestyle centres also bring in more money a square metre than malls, and cost less to operate. Stephen Sterrett, chief financial officer of Simon Property Group, said that while lifestyle centres were gaining in popularity, traditional malls would continue to be profitable.

"The fundamental thing about the mall business is having good real-estate locations," Sterrett said.

"Retailers come and go, trends will change, fashions will change, but if you have great real-estate locations, there will always be tenants who want to be in those locations."

The three largest real-estate investment trusts in the retail industry are Simon Property Group, General Growth Properties and Kimco Realty.

Shares of Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group, which gained $1,18 to $63,26 in New York on Friday, have climbed 14% in the past year.

Chicago-based General Growth Properties shares rose 78c on Friday to $35,68 and advanced 10% in the past year. Shares of New York-based Kimco, which have climbed 13% in the past year, added $1,11 to $55,21 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.