Shopping Malls’ Savior?

Ann-Marie Vazzano

With anchor stores closing across America, developers are thinking of new ways to fill that space. At Southdale Center Mall in Minnesota, a new athletic resort is taking the place of a shuttered JC Penney store. The three-level resort will become a destination for healthy living, healthy aging and healthy entertainment, according to a press release from Life Time, the company behind the project. Life Time’s chairman, CEO and founder, Bahram Akradi, has visions of creating “healthy lifestyle villages” throughout the U.S., where people can shop, live, work, socialize, exercise and even visit doctors and unwind at the spa. GP