{"id":202895,"date":"2026-03-03T22:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202895\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T22:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T22:56:10","slug":"mall-parks-on-the-rise-in-los-angeles-kids-play-while-parents-shop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202895\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Mall parks’ on the rise in Los Angeles: Kids play while parents shop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the sun peeked out from behind the clouds at 9:30 a.m. on the day after a rainy Saturday, the strollers at Runway Playa Vista rolled in. Giggles echoed in a nearby play area where children twisted knobs and spun a wheel in a car-like play structure. Toddlers whizzed by on scooters as parents chatted about the struggles of parenting during a rare L.A. storm.<\/p>\n

Their solution to kids with pent-up energy wasn\u2019t to head to any park \u2014 it was to come to a mall park. Or rather, the turf fairway and play structures that sit just outside storefronts at this southwest Los Angeles \u201cshopping center.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy older daughter does dance right here, so this is a Sunday routine for us,\u201d said Daniel LaBare, who sat with his Whole Foods shopping bags by the play car with his younger daughter, 2-year-old Ellie. \u201cShe goes to dance, and we hang out and play.\u201d <\/p>\n

With the rise of e-commerce, it\u2019s no secret that retail developers have had to get creative to keep attracting customers. One method that seems to be working? Catering to families by making green turf and other kid-friendly spaces a mall centerpiece.<\/p>\n

Some of these areas are just patches of turf with Adirondack chairs \u2014 popular with exploration-minded toddlers, or kids with a ball. But there are also shopping centers with more elaborate play structures, such as Rancho Cucamonga\u2019s Victoria Gardens \u201cOrchard Play Area\u201d (\u201cnear Shake Shack and Silverlake Ramen,\u201d according to the website). The lawns often serve as activity centers where malls hold kid concerts, adult exercise classes and Christmas tree lighting events.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A child plays on playground equipment, conveniently located near Shake Shack, at Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga.<\/p>\n

(Brookfield Properties)<\/p>\n

\u201cMore and more centers are moving away from just transactional spaces, and they\u2019re moving towards community destinations,\u201d said Paul Chase, president of JLL Lifestyle Property Management, a commercial real estate developer and investment firm that owns shopping centers across the globe. In November, it refocused Chase\u2019s division from \u201cretail\u201d to \u201clifestyle\u201d \u2014 a semantic change that reflects a shifting focus. The division now manages retail spaces as a place to spend time, not just shop, whereas it previously focused on the latter. Chase said the industry name for the landscaped places where kids play and families gather is \u201centertainment zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

One JLL Property, Manhattan Village in inland Manhattan Beach, underwent a renovation in 2021 that transformed a flat parking lot into an \u201centertainment zone\u201d featuring a turf lawn with benches, fountains and short rolling hills. On any given weekend, toddlers can be seen summiting the \u201chills\u201d to stick their fingers in the water features while parents sip coffee from the cafe that sits at the west end of the green space.<\/p>\n

Just across Rosecrans from Manhattan Village in El Segundo, families flock to the Point, the South Bay\u2019s first mall- turned-park development, which opened in 2002. Fresh from soccer games, kids kick a ball on the same patch of turf where babies crawl and families picnic \u2014 with food purchased from the mall\u2019s restaurants, including Mendocino Farms and Cava. Conceived as \u201cthe South Bay\u2019s living room,\u201d the Point\u2019s \u201canchor tenant\u201d would not be a department store, explained Jeff Kreshek, a senior vice president and western region president and chief operating officer of the Point\u2019s parent company, Federal Realty. It would be 45,000 square feet of open space.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at traditional malls, there\u2019s a commerce aspect, and they threw in some places for you to sit down,\u201d Kreshek said. \u201cSo it was kind of reverse engineering what shopping centers had been for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Three <\/p>\n

Charlotte Nguyen, center, and her friends do craft activities on the lawn during a Lunar New Year celebration at the Point in El Segundo, on Sunday, February 22, 2025. <\/p>\n

(Stella Kalinina\/For The Times)<\/p>\n

There are plenty of parks in these neighborhoods, and parents say they bring their children to public playgrounds, too. But they come to Runway, the Point or Manhattan Village because of the convenience of having nearby food, beverage and shopping options as their children play.<\/p>\n

Convenience has yielded community. Daniel LaBare\u2019s daughter goes to preschool nearby, and they frequently run into classmates\u2019 families at Runway.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019ll see at least one or two people who she knows here today,\u201d LaBare said. \u201cThis is our community as far as I\u2019m concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tori Kjer, executive director of parks management and advocacy organization LA Neighborhood Land Trust, is all for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are 100% supportive of gathering spaces of all shapes and forms because we believe those are the critical places where community members have a chance to come together and meet and celebrate,\u201d Kjer said.<\/p>\n

The combination of shopping and green space is by no means a new phenomenon. Catherine Nagel, executive director of parks equity organization City Parks Alliance, points out that where parks go, shopping often follows. It\u2019s a symbiotic relationship where parks attract families, and then families can get the provisions or fulfill the errands they need to further enjoy the park. That\u2019s a recipe for a healthy community.<\/p>\n

\"Twin \"Twin <\/p>\n

Twin sisters Emma and Ella Sandoval, left, greet the character Mei Mei at the Point during a Lunar New Year celebration. Kids and parents participate in craft activities at the celebration on Sunday, February 22, 2025. (Stella Kalinina\/For The Times) <\/p>\n

Parks \u2014 like retailers \u2014 have also begun to offer more activities in recent years, said Nagel. So retailers and the stewards of public lands (whether that\u2019s the city or the nonprofits that often manage parks) are learning from each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of attention now to activating these [public] spaces in a way that will bring people to them,\u201d Nagel said, referencing activities like salsa dancing in Bryant Park in New York that use park land for structured public gatherings. \u201cBecause if you don\u2019t activate them, they can quite often become places where unhealthy, unproductive activity takes place.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, a mall park\u2019s green space is not truly public.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s totally fine and great if private property owners want to create gathering spaces in their malls, but there\u2019s no replacement for a robust city park system that has green spaces with trees and lawns and play structures and just places for people to gather,\u201d Kjer says. \u201cThe beautiful thing about parks is they are open to everyone. They are intended to be safe spaces for people to protest, to celebrate, to go about their daily lives, without any stigma or worry about being asked to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a park, visitors are citizens or patrons. At the shopping center entertainment zone, they\u2019re customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes down to dwell time,\u201d Chase said. \u201cThe longer that people stay in a center, of course the more money they\u2019re going to spend.\u201d<\/p>\n

But families say the mall aspect doesn\u2019t bother them. After all, this generation of parents are the millennials and Gen X-ers who grew up socializing at the mall a la Cher Horowitz in \u201cClueless.\u201d Now, as parents, the convenience, manicured turf and camaraderie offers something valuable for them in this season of their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can let them run, and do your shopping, so everyone wins,\u201d said Charlotte Ahles, who was playing at Runway with 2-year-old daughter Chloe. She pulled at her mom\u2019s pants, towards the Micro Kickboard store directly across from the play area.<\/p>\n

\u201cScooter, scooter,\u201d Chloe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scooter store isn\u2019t open yet, honey,\u201d said Ahles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the sun peeked out from behind the clouds at 9:30 a.m. on the day after a rainy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3409,1431,31798,94118,3410,48,52,51,94121,47,50,49,15793,94120,7087,1833,94119,592,1410,1417,12092],"class_list":{"0":"post-202895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-child","9":"tag-family","10":"tag-green-space","11":"tag-green-turf","12":"tag-kid","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-headlines","15":"tag-la-news","16":"tag-lawn","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","19":"tag-los-angeles-news","20":"tag-mall","21":"tag-manhattan-village","22":"tag-parent","23":"tag-park","24":"tag-paul-chase","25":"tag-people","26":"tag-place","27":"tag-point","28":"tag-shopping-center"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}