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February 2017 — Retail Properties Quarterly — Page 21
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STOPONE
important in attracting and retaining
clients. The Parlour Hair Salon and
Matthew Morris Salon and Skincare
are two local, independent compa-
nies that are great examples, Hansen
said.
Ella Bliss is another good example,
said Livaditis. “They’ve become an
approachable space,” he said. “They
put more services under one roof
and have created an experiential
atmosphere with an overall good
feeling. It feels like a spa, but it’s
more approachable, which makes it
more of an everyday kind of thing
and opens the door for people to do
it more often.”
The most pronounced impact
on the real estate market is in the
5,000-plus-sf spaces. These spaces
are becoming increasingly popular
for salon suites. Salon suites offer
stylists the opportunity to rent their
own suite, while avoiding many of
the pressures that come from own-
ing and operating a physical salon.
Sola Salon Studios, founded in
Boulder, is a great example. The
company targets retail spaces that
are about 5,000 to 7,000 square
feet, mainly inline, but occasionally
standalone, and demises the space
into 30 private suites, said Jay Landt,
a senior vice president with Col-
liers International. Instead of rent-
ing a chair a la the traditional salon
model, stylists and other salon prac-
titioners can rent a private suite. In
about eight years, the company has
gone from 15 locations to more than
300 across the country, said Landt.
“The competition has certainly
been growing and I’m seeing more
and more of these concepts pop up
every year,” Landt said. “The model
has been accepted, it’s successful
and other people are trying to repli-
cate it.”
Some salon suites offer in-house
services, such as a front desk recep-
tionist and general atmosphere, but
Sola Salon simply rents the space
and lets each practitioner manage
her business as she sees fit.
As the healthy economy gives con-
sumers more discretionary money,
health, beauty and wellness retail-
ers have become more acceptable
spending outlets. “People are more
apt to spend money taking care of
themselves than in the past,” said
Livaditis. “It’s just become more
acceptable.”
Living in a state that repeatedly
earns high marks for health and
wellness helps drive cultural accep-
tance as well.
“It’s becoming a very dominant
sector in this market, and I cannot
say if it’s this dominant in every
market,” said Hansen. “Colorado is
continually noted as one of the most
healthy states. I feel it’s a real plus
for our market that we’re getting
these opportunities.”
For landlords, the biggest appeal
to any of these projects is that they
are internet resistant and they come
off as fairly sexy – it’s fun to offer a
unique concept in a center. Yet that
can be both a good thing and a bad
thing. Staying trendy, at times, can
be a losing game as fads fade.
Other leasing challenges with the
highly specialized concepts are that
these younger, less-established busi-
nesses often can’t pay the rent a
typical fast-casual restaurant can
afford. They also often have less
credit developed and can be hesitant
to committing to a five-year lease.
“Landlords are looking to make
sure they get the most stable and
secure tenants of these categories,”
said Hansen. “And although we seem
to have an influx of them right now,
not all of them are that stable.”
The location matters for these
types of services as well. Not only do
they need easy access to their core
demographics – typically in higher-
income areas – but also they need
small spaces, which not all shopping
centers can accommodate, said Han-
sen.
For the holistic salons, including
unique spas and salon suites, the
biggest leasing challenge can be that
leasing to one can severely limit the
opportunities for the landlord to sign
specialized, smaller leases within the
center, because they’d be in direct
competition with all the services
offered at the salon. However, that
doesn’t seem to be hindering too
many such deals.
“I do think that the salon suites have
more of an across-the-board impact
on the beauty side of things,” said Liva-
ditis. “We’re seeing a lot of them and
they seem to make a lot of sense.”
Whether in the suburbs, down-
town or anywhere else, there’s
growth in this product type, he said.
For the smaller, specialized retailers,
the growth is clustered in the high-
end malls and higher-income areas.
Typically, landlords are not signing
beauty retailers that are too special-
ized in the traditional neighborhood
shopping center, unless that shop-
ping center’s demographics appear
to be able to support it.
When talking to a landlord about
a new Sola Salon location, Landt
makes sure to remind them that the
overall beauty industry is flourishing
and will continue to do so because
it’s services based.
“I also love to tell them it’s great
for their merchandizing mix,” he
said. “Although we’re not trying to
be an anchor, it’s common for a
typical Sola to draw 700 or 800 shop-
pers to that shopping center every
week – if you think about 30 stylists,
five appointments a day. It is a big
draw.”s
Market Drivers
Blu Hartkopp Photography
The Orchard Town Center offers a wide range of these types of tenants, including
Elements Massage, Eyebrow Threading, Orchard Nail Spa, European Wax, Pigtails &
Crewcuts, Sola Salon Studios, Spavia Day Spa and others.