Mall owners Brookfield and Simon have invested in Creating Culinary Communities, which launched this year and merges the food hall and ghost kitchen concepts. C3 plans 1,000 new ghost kitchens in the U.S. by the end of 2021 in hotels, restaurants and Brookfield and Simon malls. Each will offer sit-down dining, pickup and local delivery, including as many as 10 delivery-only kitchens.

C3’s first food hall, a 40,000-square-foot space called Citizens New York, will open in September at Brookfield Properties’ Manhattan West with 40 brands. The 24,000-square-foot Citizens Atlanta will open at the end of 2022 as part of Simon’s redevelopment of Phipps Plaza. Citizens food halls are underway in California, Miami and Seattle.

Foot traffic at malls strengthened in June

Shopping center foot traffic is nearing pre-pandemic levels, according to Placer.ai’s Mall Index — Q2 2021. Visits to enclosed malls were down only 8.1% in June from the same month two years ago, a slight improvement from May’s 8.3% decline. June 2021 visits to outdoor outlet and lifestyle centers were even closer to June 2019 numbers, down by only 5.6%. However, that follows a May 2019-to-May 2020 gap for those properties of a miniscule 0.7%.

Brookfield brings in augmented reality for onsite marketing

Aria will provide “phygital” marketing at Brookfield’s more than 100 malls, starting with this year’s holiday season. Via via augmented reality, the firm offers, digital store directories, wayfinding and in-store promotions via the smartphones of customers who are at the property. For example, a guest might scan a QR code to view a clip of movie showing at the property, receive a link to a virtual reality game featuring characters from the movie and access discount codes for related merchandise for sale in the mall.

Meanwhile, a Westfield partnership with a buy-now-pay-later service provider also will include onsite, tech-enabled marketing. AfterPay, which enables customers to take their purchases immediately and pay over interest-free installments, says it will work with Westfield centers in the U.S. and "the companies will jointly invest in new customer experiences, retail innovation, events, marketing and on-premise advertising." AfterPay and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield plan to take the partnership global in the coming months, according to AfterPay.

Kimco’s first ESG head

Kimco Realty hired Tamara Chernomordik as its first director of environmental, social and governance. She worked most recently at industrial REIT Prologis. The hire is part of Kimco’s ongoing sustainability push. Kimco was the first North American retail real estate owner named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. The REIT has set a goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.