Friedel is satisfied with his lifestyle choice.

Mitchell Friedel, an executive vice president at Robert K. Futterman & Associates, LLC and head of their new Retail Property Advisors, has found his true passion: consulting on retail for lifestyle centers, large scale developments that feature residential, retail, and office components.

After graduating from Lehigh University with a B.S. in business and economics, Friedel got his first job in the field at Corporate Property Investors in 1990. There he was responsible for the leasing of the super regional shopping centers in the company's portfolio. He was with the company until 1997, when they were bought out by Simon Property Group.

He promptly joined the Related Companies working in third party leasing and working his way up to executive vice president of Related Retail Advisors. It was here that he got his first taste of the lifestyle center phenomena.

Friedel worked as a retail consultant for both the Columbus Center at Time Warner Center in New York City and City Place in West Palm Beach, Florida.

City Place wasn't a typical retail strip, but integrated residential, retail and office components, featuring condos, rental apartments, office lofts, a convention center and 600,000 s/f of retail on two levels. Once the development was complete, West Palm Beach--a poor relative to its tony neighbor, Palm Beach--flourished because of it, according to Friedel.

The Time Warner Center was one of the most challenging projects Friedel had ever undertaken, being built, as it was, in an urban setting. "At first, people were nay sayers, but it's easy to be like that when something is so new," said Friedel.

Today the project, whose retail space features anchor tenants Whole Foods and Borders Books and Music on top of many luxury retailers, is a huge success.

"This was my first introduction to the business," Friedel said. "I learned that it takes a long time to put these things together. It's so complex, not like a mall or shopping center." After that, he was hooked on lifestyle centers.

In fact, the main reason he left Related in 2004 to head up the Retail Property Advisors, a retail consulting division at Futterman, is because he was so eager to immerse himself in the business of lifestyle centers, a division which Related was not planning to grow.

"Robert and I had been friends for a while. I respected him and his business, and it seemed like a good match for me," Fridel said. "No other company has my division."

Robert K. Futterman, chairman and CEO of the company, is delighted with the progress of the division so far. "We are experiencing tremendous growth throughout the RKF organization, and I see Mitch's division continuing to lead that charge," he said. "Their services are unique and in demand by developers across the country."

One of the first projects Fridel worked on at RKF was SouthSide Works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Soffer Organization, the prominent Pittsburgh firm which developed SouthSide Works, had originally approached him while he was still at Related. Friedel worked for Related throughout the first year he worked on this project, but brought it over to RKF with him when he switched companies. SouthSide Works, which features 330,000 s/f of specialty retail, restaurants, a hotel, residential urban living units, and up to 700,000 s/f of class A office space, celebrated its grand opening in October 2005, 100% leased.

Since joining RKF only eleven months ago, Friedel has been responsible for 4.5 million s/f of retail in 10 projects, working with such notable developers as The Mills Corporation and New England Development.

"In the entire country there are only 120 lifestyle centers," Friedel said. "People will do an outdoor strip with some nice tenants and call it a lifestyle center, but we get involved with projects that are between 500 million s/f and 1 billion s/f. They're mini-cities. The minimum retail at one of these centers is between 300,000 s/f and 400,000 s/f."

The division has been working as the consultant for the retail space within the highly publicized, $1.3 billion, mixed-use retail, entertainment and recreation development, Xanadu, in East Rutherford, New Jersey. And, the division's newest project is consulting for the 400,000 s/f of lifestyle retail space at Westwood Station, a mixed-use development in Westwood, Massachusetts.

"There's a transformation of the entire industry and we're at the forefront to see that and take advantage of it," Friedel said. "It's in its infancy. There was only one new mall in the United States in 2005, but lifestyle centers are popping up all over the place."

Fridel's Retail Property Advisors is involved with the centers from the very beginning, first analyzing the market, then helping to make decisions regarding its development. They work to help developers bring in the best retailers, primarily luxury lifestyle retailers, for their developments. Generally, Friedel said, there are between eight and ten restaurants and a major theater, bookstore, fitness center or gourmet market as the anchor. Such a wide variety, accompanied by residential, hotel, office and outdoor space creates a downtown atmosphere, as the developer "brings an urban feel to a suburban area."

"You want to be careful about who you bring in. The tenants have to complement each other," he said. "The effect of retail can be seen on the other components of the center. If there are Triple A retailers, people will want to be there."

Friedel said that these lifestyle centers are becoming more common because the consumer has changed over the years. "Expect them to want to be entertained," he said. According to Friedel, lifestyle centers are much more appealing to customers than a regular mall.

"Customers can go to one of these centers as a family and everyone can find something," he said. "They'll also spend more time there. People go to the mall on average for only one hour. We're active from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m."

Suburban, typically affluent markets are where these lifestyle centers can usually be found, but Friedel doesn't believe there's an exact science to developing them. Though, he doubts whether New York City will see another center like the Time Warner Center, primarily because of the need for large blocks of space. He also said that the last plan he heard for the World Trade Center site--which he consulted on for a while--included something similar to a lifestyle center.

He said that Westchester makes sense for such a development, although it would be pricy to get the 100 to 150 acres needed. Long Island could be the best bet for the next New York lifestyle center. Friedel is now speaking with a developer about the possibility of such a project on Long Island.

For now, though, Friedel is focused on slowly building his arm of the company and has recently brought on three new people. He's also being selective about the projects he works on. "We don't want to be too aggressive, but we do want only the best projects," he said.