The names are synonymous with shopping in suburban Chicago: Old Orchard, Hawthorn, Fox Valley.
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But now three of the area’s largest regional malls are on their way to becoming “Westfield Shoppingtowns” after being bought by a new Australian owner. Already, temporary signs and items bearing the Westfield brand are springing up at Old Orchard Center in Skokie, Hawthorn Center in Vernon Hills and Fox Valley Center in Aurora.
The malls won’t completely lose their old identities but will have the Westfield Shoppingtown name tacked on at the front–as in Westfield Shoppingtown Old Orchard.
Ultimately, Westfield America Inc. sees its branding concept for malls as giving it an advantage in bringing prestigious anchor tenants to malls that become destinations for shoppers.
“Branding in Corporate America today is a huge issue,” said Todd Caruso, managing director of Eastern U.S. CB Richard Ellis Retail Services, a large manager of Chicago-area commercial properties. “Clearly Westfield sees this as an opportunity to associate their name with three very successful properties.”
Westfield hopes to create a brand in the Chicago area to make it easier to attract mall tenants, while not alienating consumers who know and love the malls’ decades-old names.
“Because of the strength of the [Westfield] brand, national retailers and regional retailers know the brand, they know what to expect from the brand,” said Catharine Dickey, spokeswoman for Westfield America Inc.
The company hopes to use that reputation to make it easier to attract mall tenants. The strategy is not a new one for Westfield, which has taken its colorful red signs to most of its 61 malls across the United States.
Westfield America Trust, an Australian property trust and owner of Westfield America, acquired the three Chicago-area malls and 11 others in the liquidation of Rodamco North America in a deal that closed this month.
Easing into name change
To avoid alienating customers, the new owner plans to start slowly.
The transition means first posting temporary Westfield Shoppingtown signs and introducing shoppers to trademark Westfield features. Those include free shopping bags, balloons and “Kiddie Kruzzer” strollers for children.
“Change is an issue, and we recognize the need to address that,” Dickey said. “That’s why we’re in a transition.”
Eventually, the company puts permanent Westfield Shoppingtown signs on parking structures and mall buildings it acquires, though there isn’t a set timeline for when the brand change will be completed.
Westfield specializes in owning clusters of malls, and first tried out its branding strategy on five shopping centers in the St. Louis area. It also owns malls in California, Washington, Colorado and along the East Coast. Because this is Westfield’s debut in the Chicago area, “they want people to quickly learn their name,” says Maria Berg-Stark, marketing manager for Old Orchard and Hawthorn.
Caruso of CB Richard Ellis said Westfield has a strong reputation as a mall operator, and that the branding strategy could help it expand.
“Perhaps they feel that’s going to provide them with an entree to other opportunities, to other acquisition targets,” he said.
Westfield managing director Peter Lowy, who led the branding change for Westfield in the U.S. starting in the late 1990s, thought the company’s clusters of malls could benefit from branding.
“Nobody thought it would work,” Lowy said in a corporate report. “With our clusters and branding, we changed the nature of how the investment community looks at the mall business.”
Branding atypical for malls
Branding is not widespread in mall ownership. The Rouse Co., which bought Rodamco’s Water Tower Place and Oakbrook Center, for example, has no plans to change the names.
“We just normally don’t,” said spokeswoman Nancy Tucker. “They’re a staple in their communities by that name.”
But consumer products companies have long used branding to extend their potential reach, and hotel chains also rely heavily on standardized branding.
“If Marriott buys a hotel, it’s the same thing,” Dickey said.
The concept for malls could take some time to catch on, however. Some Hawthorn Center shoppers were not impressed with the new name.
Fondly recalled history
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Judy O’Brien of Mundelein has been shopping at Hawthorn since it opened in 1973 and even worked there for a time at the now defunct Hickory Farms store.
She said that the history of the Hawthorn name is important to her–it dates back to the Hawthorn-Mellody Farm that used to be located near the site–and she’ll always refer to it as Hawthorn Center.
Besides, she said, Westfield Shoppingtown “just doesn’t sound like it should be in Vernon Hills. It sounds like it should be up in Gurnee” with the other outlet shops.
Employees at Hawthorn Dental Associates, located just inside one of the mall’s main entrances, said they weren’t going to change their name to coincide with the added Westfield Shoppingtown moniker.
“We’ve been in practice here for 16 years now, there’s no reason to change our name,” said the practice’s manager, Maureen Kugel. “I don’t know why they’re changing [the mall’s] name. I just thought it’s such a shame because there’s such a history here.”
The new owner might be looking at other ways to keep shoppers coming back. The company said some of its acquisitions could be redeveloped in the next 5 to 10 years, but did not specify which malls might be improved.
Old Orchard was last redeveloped in 1994, Hawthorn in 1997 and Fox Valley in 1998.
“There may well be new stores coming in” to the newly acquired malls, Dickey said.