Shopping centres are making a comeback. The pandemic and the years-long shift to e-commerce seemed to signal the end of brick-and-mortar stores, but foot traffic has been steadily increasing in recent times. Shopping centre operators are fuelling this resurgence by transforming traditional malls into retail “destinations,” with a focus on offering multiple services and amenities under one roof and improving the overall customer experience. We are seeing this transformation in action as we provide facilities and engineering services to 28 million square feet of shopping centre space in England and Wales.
Unique Destinations and Demand
Shopping centres share many of the built environment challenges facing all modern businesses: they must ensure the health and safety of people using their facilities, comply with regulations, control costs, adapt to changing consumer habits and expectations by right-sizing their portfolios and digitising where possible, and strive to achieve increasingly ambitious environmental targets, including net zero.
But to transform a shopping centre into a destination, facilities and maintenance strategies must be tailored to its unique requirements. As any operator knows, the top priority must always be the safety, comfort and convenience of their customers. And happy customers mean happy retailers. That means the lighting must be right, the temperature must be correct, the space must be clean, areas like automatic doors and escalators must work, and the customer experience must be as uninterrupted as possible.
In this regard, well-considered facility management and maintenance will result in fewer unplanned breakdowns and operational downtime, cost savings from fewer repairs, longer lifespans of all assets, improved energy efficiency, increased asset values, and of course, improved retailer and customer satisfaction.
Make a plan
The first step in any maintenance strategy is to create an asset register that records all fixed and removable assets and classifies them in order of importance.
Mark Baker, division director at Integral
This should start with all the critical items like power systems, life safety systems, lighting, washrooms, elevators, etc., and then expand to everything else you can track for maintenance, like windows, floors, doors, etc.
Once the inventory is in place, a maintenance plan can be created for each asset. Reactive repairs when issues arise are inevitable, but a comprehensive Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) schedule can reduce such incidents. PPM schedules outlining the frequency of inspections should be based on manufacturer recommendations, compliance requirements, asset history, and local conditions that may affect the condition and performance of each asset, such as external climate conditions and foot traffic. This is where understanding SFG20, the recognised British industry standard for building maintenance specifications, comes in. The SFG20 database contains over 1,000 maintenance schedules for over 70 types of equipment, eliminating the need to refer to manufacturer guidelines. Schedule guidance within SFG20 includes recommended frequencies for maintaining each asset, minimising over- or under-repairing, and a colour-coding system to assist with prioritising maintenance: red (statutory/legal), pink (mandatory/business-critical), yellow (optimal), green (optional).
Become smarter
Advances in smart building technology can enable retailers to truly enhance the customer experience. Foot traffic in a shopping centre can vary greatly at different times of the week and in specific areas of the site, resulting in different levels of demand for the same asset. Restrooms are used much more frequently on a weekend compared to a Tuesday afternoon, and automatic doors in popular retail spaces operate more frequently than in quieter areas.
With this in mind, equipping assets with sensors and connecting them to a network allows operators to monitor and measure conditions such as temperature and vibration, while also providing a greater understanding of how the asset performs over time by increasing the historical data set. This can then enable the development of predictive maintenance plans that use a combination of analytics and machine learning algorithms to analyze the data and anticipate maintenance needs, reducing downtime and allowing engineers to service assets only when necessary.
The same smart, sensor-based technology can help operators manage the customer experience in real time—everything from sensors that alert facilities teams when parking lot lights go out to environmental controls that allow operators to adjust lighting or temperature on the fly, which is especially useful when areas of a shopping center are experiencing significant traffic or are unused.
Transforming a shopping center into an entertainment destination relies on the ability to adapt and innovate in a rapidly evolving retail landscape. By implementing a comprehensive maintenance strategy and leveraging smart building technology, operators can keep their destinations attractive, efficient, and responsive to the needs of both retailers and customers. This proactive approach not only minimizes operational disruptions but also improves the overall customer experience.
Mark Baker
Learn more
Mark Baker is a Division Director at Integral. A JLL company, Integral is the UK’s leading architectural services and engineering firm. Integral provides end-to-end technology-driven services to ensure buildings are safe, compliant and durable. Their unrivalled technical expertise helps create more efficient and sustainable spaces for all.