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A lifestyle center (American English), or lifestyle centre (Commonwealth English), is an open-air shopping center which aims to create a "pedestrian-friendly, town-like atmosphere with sidewalks, landscaping, ambient lighting, and park benches. Memphis developers Poag and McEwen are generally credited with developing the concept in the late 1980s. Lifestyle centers emerged as a major retailing trend in the late 1990s. Sometimes labeled boutique malls or ersatz downtown, they are often located in affluent suburbia areas.
Unlike the traditional commercial layout of strip malls, lifestyle centers present their formal storefronts as facing each other across a landscaped pedestrian walkway or a low volume two-lane road. Those with a more extensive street grid or more multifunctional and dense development include offices, hotels, residential, retail, and entertainment, often with a designated function to act as the community's center. One of the earliest proponents of lifestyle centers was RED Development, which built centers primarily in the Midwest and Southwest United States.
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