New Open Air "Lifestyle" Center Debuts in Greater Cleveland

Legacy Village, a new open air 'lifestyle" retail center opened this weekend in suburban Lyndhurst, Ohio, an eastside suburban of Cleveland. By all indications, the center's first two days were a huge success. The center is located just across the street from Beachwood Place, the region's largest fashion shopping mall. See map below.



Open air centers are the rage across the country as shoppers and those seeking entertainment seek more of a "community look" to their shopping and entertainment experiences.

Here is an architectural rendering of the center. As its name reflects, Legacy Village will strive to provide a "village-like environment" for shopping.



Developer First Interstate Properties Ltd. courted upscale retailers and restaurants, giving them prime locations on the 67-acre Lyndhurst property that was once home to TRW Inc., and offering them proximity to affluent suburbanites with an average household income of $82,000.

Legacy Village is an upscale first-class "life style" retail center located on 67 acres of land at the corner of Cedar and Richmond Roads in Lyndhurst, Ohio. The project consists of approximately 610,000 square feet of space, including 25,000 square feet of third-story office space. Of the 585,000 square feet of shopping center space within the Legacy Village project, more than 50% of retail space is devoted to first-class retailers and restaurants that do not currently have locations in the Cleveland, Ohio area.

Architect Dorsky Hodgson & Partners designed the center to look like a 1940s midwestern small town, but shoppers said it reminded them of Boca Raton, Fla.; Palm Springs, Calif.; or the Easton Town Center in Columbus.

The economic development message in all this is "community is back." People want to feel connected to something that is alive, connected and familiar. Futurist Joh Nisbet used the expression "high tech, high touch" in his early 1980's bestseller Megatrends to describe how people seek the "humane" amidst all the spiraling high tech gadgetry around us. I think the same can be said for retail development.

Click here to go to the Legacy Village website.