Leasing to a wide selection of designer labels and other desirable brands is a major priority for most upscale malls. But even with a broad mix of popular labels, attracting shoppers is a never-ending exercise in creative marketing.

Malls are differentiating themselves from “big box” retailers and online vendors by providing more social venues, comforts and conveniences to shoppers and the public at large. These trends are keeping housekeeping and maintenance crews on their toes as they juggle performance and increased patron contact with tighter budgets.

Calvin Connell, operations director at Magic Valley Mall in Twin Falls, Idaho, for the last 17 years, says renting the mall common area or property exterior to different groups is one trend that is definitely going to continue at his mall.

A local church has rented the mall’s 54,000-square-foot common area for the last five years to host a New Year’s Eve dance for 10,000 people, with three bands and multiple food venues. Although alcohol wasn’t allowed, the revelry was boisterous and cleanup intense.

“The first year I was just blown away,” Connell says. “What sticks out in my mind was the cleanup. At midnight we lost control — there was not enough manpower to keep up!”

Cleaning workers drove a pickup truck into the mall and literally shoveled papers, confetti and noisemakers into it.

Connell, an employee of Jones Lang LaSalle, is a little nervous about the fact that a beer garden will be on premise when the city hosts its centennial party in the mall later this year. At this stage of the planning, the number of attendees is unknown, but police and the U.S. National Guard are expected to be present for crowd control.

“Two years ago, we were challenged (by property owner Gregory Greenfield and Associates) to bring some extra money in,” says Connell, “and [renting the premises to external groups] is one of the ideas we thought of. Obviously, malls are landlords. They’re there to rent out space. Now that the owners are seeing what it does, they’re challenging their other properties as well.”

Creating the comforts of home
Facility rental is just one way malls are luring shoppers. Making the experience more comfortable and relaxing is also a key.

Rest areas now feature amenity public areas that simulate home living rooms, featuring throw rugs, couches, end tables, newspapers and magazines.

One of the biggest trends is incorporating rest/play stations with toys for toddlers, changing stations, and rocking chairs for nursing mothers with half-walls for privacy.

“It’s a lot better than when their only option was the center of the mall,” Connell says.

Challenges to housekeeping include keeping the diaper pails empty, dispensers stocked and the entire area disinfected.

“We are constantly disinfecting, cleaning and wiping spills in carpeting that need to be cleaned up immediately,” says Ron Brinza, regional manager for CBL & Associates Properties, owner of East Towne Mall and West Towne Mall in Madison, Wis. “Lots of kids means different things happen.”

Tapping into touchless technology
A trend that is streamlining housekeeping’s role is the increasing popularity of hands-free restroom fixtures.

Connell says his mall’s hands-free restrooms are easier to clean for many reasons.

“Taking out the doors eliminated paper towels on the floor,” he explains. “Hands-free faucets eliminated water taps being left on, flooding sinks and slippery floor conditions. Automatic flush valves have prevented the plumbing from leaking and prevented having to pull the urinals off once a month and snaking them clean.”

“Plastic stalls all but eliminated the graffiti,” he says. “The only current graffiti challenges are on the various dispensers and infant holders.”

Another trend at malls is the growing popularity of family-size restrooms. CBL & Associates Properties is building these into Madison’s East Towne and West Towne malls. Family restrooms feature stalls that can accommodate more than one adult. They also have a larger common area.

“They may add a little more time to clean, but it’s the same routine,” Brinza says.

Lesson: Be prepared
“Routine” is a word that doesn’t automatically come to mind in the retail mall industry, especially from someone who worked in the security industry, like Ron Beyer, operations manager at North Grand Mall in Ames, Iowa. As a former security officer, he has witnessed how housekeeping and security events often go hand in hand.

When roughhousing teenagers shattered a 7-foot-high, 3-foot-wide pane of 1&Mac218;4-inch-thick door glass, Beyer’s housekeeping staff had to try to protect the public from coming in contact with it, especially the large shards that hung precariously, like lethal guillotines.

Beyer, who has held the position less than a year, was thankful he had a good relationship with his glass vendor, who sent two people immediately to remove all of the broken glass and replace the pane, which happened to be a standard size.

“In an hour and a half we had a new glass door,” Beyer says, grateful that the event, which occurred at 3:30 p.m. on a Friday evening, did not have a negative impact on retailer’s lucrative weekend hours.

“It’s important you carry on a good relationship with your suppliers because there are situations like this that do pop up — glass doors, roof leaks, air conditioning units ... The more time you have to react the better off you are — but that’s not always the case.”

Beyer says his staff is prepared for just about any task or event. Brinza says his staff has discussed the impact of terrorist acts on housekeeping operations, and has had bloodborne pathogen kits in stock since about 1993. “We go through a plan of action once a year, but we talk about fire, natural disasters, etc. We have a manual, too. In this day and age you have to be prepared for a lot of things.”

Being prepared for the more mundane challenges can also test a housekeeping staff’s mettle — and patience.

“People are definitely messier outside with trash than inside,” Connell says. “You’d almost think [shoppers] come here just to clean their car out.” Cigarette butts and used diapers discarded in the parking lot are his pet peeves. “On average, it’s probably six diapers a day in the parking lot,” he says.

A total of four hours daily are spent picking up discarded cigarette butts at the entrances of the non-smoking mall.

“Even though there are wall-mounted cigarette-butt bins at every entrance, a majority of the public chooses not to use them,” Connell says.

How it all comes together
Storage is a growing challenge for housekeepers tasked with storing and retrieving floor scrubbers, mops, barricades, hoses, special brushes for cleaning escalator stairs, even holiday decorations ... in whatever spaces aren’t leasable.

Connell says his equipment is housed in four different areas, so gear is close to spills wherever they may occur. Outdoor storage units house weatherproof equipment, such as barricades.

“We try to keep it organized, so everyone knows where everything’s at,” Connell says. “Now that we’re more organized we’ve been able to make more space available for ourselves, and fire inspections go faster now, too.”

Damage control in one particular area seems to be a universal challenge for all facility professionals: water mishaps.

“You never get a leak near the drain,” Brinza chuckles, recalling the time a food-court sprinkler deluge system was accidentally triggered, and a “wall of water” flooded 4,000 square feet of mall space.

Mall employees grabbed wet-dry vacuums and squeegees to corral the water into one area where it was vacuumed up.

Brinza credits his building service contractor, ERMC Corp., with the power to pull enough people together from different locations and facilities to tackle the event quickly and efficiently.

“Within a half-hour we had 20 people here cleaning that up,” he says.

“We were all out there mopping,” he says. “I pick up a mop more often than I ever dreamed of when I got into this business. The philosophy of our company is we do whatever it takes to keep the property clean and neat for our customers. There are times when you’re out there scrubbing. In some of those emergencies it’s kind of fun to see how everyone pulls together and gets it done.”

It pays to have a sense of humor when you work in building operations at an upscale mall. Fickle infrastructure and questionable public manners simply can’t measure up to the airbrushed glamour of a television ad. And people are definitely influenced by what they see, whether it’s a television ad or what they observe in their immediate environment.

Connell believes that the level of mess generated by visitors is directly influenced by how they perceive surrounding areas.

“If there is trash, candy wrappers, or popcorn on the floor, people feel more comfortable throwing their trash on the ground,” he says. “But if the mall is clean of all this debris, then people are more likely to look for a trash container.”

Lori Veit is a business writer based in Madison, Wis.




POSTED ON: 9/1/2003