Last modified: Tuesday, December 25, 2007 11:08 PM EST Patriot Place: The future of shopping BY RICK FOSTER/ UN CHRONICLE STAFF FOXBORO - The 36,000-square-foot Hall will celebrate the history and traditions of the New England Patriots, which the Krafts transformed from a backwater of professional football into a sports dynasty. But it also crowns the arrival of professional sports stadia as the hub of a new kind of urban development, in which it turns out the Krafts also played a leading role. These days, retail-entertainment mega-developments are sprouting around the edges of professional sports venues from Washington, D.C., to Fremont, Calif., with amenities ranging from sports-themed nightclubs and restaurants to indoor skiing. But in the late 1990s, after the Krafts had purchased the Patriots from James Orthwein, both the Patriots and the NFL were seeking a new identity. One of those who helped bring it into focus was Chuck Bragitikos, a Philadelphia consultant brought in when the NFL was looking to capitalize on its professional sports expertise with football-themed attractions and entertainment features. Among those intently observing developments as a member of a league oversight committee was Bob Kraft. "He's a guy who's incredibly entrepreneurial, who understands the power of the brand, and knows how to put something together that's more than the sum of its parts," said Bragitikos, president of Vibrant Development, which counsels major league franchise owners, casino developers and other parties on development issues. "He's certainly been a leader." Since successfully negotiating a tricky path to construct Gillette Stadium in Foxboro - by way of Providence and Hartford - Kraft and his team quietly acquired land along Route 1 in Foxboro, setting the foundation to make the new stadium the hub of a commercial and entertainment megacenter. And, with the second of two phases of the new Patriot Place set to open next year, Kraft has beaten almost every other stadium and franchise owner to the punch. Patriot Place is just the first in a series of sports-themed retail centers, entertainment megaplexes - even whole neighborhoods - poised to spring up in concert with new major league sports stadia. Some examples: In Arlington, Texas, the 135-acre "Glorypark" will encompass more than 2 million square feet of office and retail space, three major hotels and 2,000 residential units sandwiched between a new ballpark for the Texas Rangers and the new Dallas Cowboys domed stadium. The complex will open in 2009. In Fremont, Calif., the Oakland Athletics major league baseball team is proposing a "ballpark village," complete with a new stadium, a retail-office complex, 3,100 residential units, and even a new elementary school. The Meadowlands Xanadu retail-office-entertainment complex in New Jersey is expected to cost $2 billion and will flank a new, $1.3 billion stadium to house both the New York Jets and New York Giants football teams. Xanadu, when it opens next year, will include a lavish array of leisure amenities, including a first-of-its-kind indoor ski resort. In the ever-competitive development world, retail and entertainment centers piggybacking on major league sports are viewed as a way to expand revenues by creating a unique shopping and entertainment experience. "Team owners see their teams or facilities they can control as a way to catalyze other types of development," Bragitikos said. It doesn't hurt that most sports stadia are already sited to maximize parking and proximity to highways and major population centers - the very attributes most coveted by shopping mall developers. Locating major retail projects next to or surrounding sports arenas also takes advantage of visibility and cost advantages unavailable elsewhere, and helps stadiums and team owners wring additional revenue streams from their ballparks. "Especially in the case of football, you've got a large footprint and lots full of parking spaces that normally aren't used very much," Bragitikos said. "If you can bring shopping and entertainment into the mix and benefit from the economies of scale it offers, it's a win-win in every sense." Malachy Kavanagh, a spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers, said the bringing together of sports and shopping is a marriage of convenience - and profit. "Sports stadiums get to maximize the value of the land on their properties by creating more revenue opportunities," Kavanagh said. "Retail benefits from an element of entertainment and association with a major sports arena that they didn't have before." Practicality is another reason bringing sports and commerce together. With municipalities increasingly concerned about sprawl, stadium-retail-entertainment complexes represent a more efficient use of land and a way to wring additional tax revenue and jobs from a single parcel, Kavanagh said. In some cities, reasons for combining a stadium with related retail, residential and office projects are even more pragmatic. The Oakland A's, who are seeking approval from the city of Fremont for a privately financed, 250-acre "ballpark village," would surround a proposed new stadium with stores, entertainment attractions and more than 3,000 residential units, whose sales would help finance the ballpark. "The retail and residential will actually help pay for the stadium," said A's spokesman Ken Pries, who added that the As aim to create the ambience of Boston's Fenway neighborhood or the area around Chicago's Wrigley Field through development that would be compatible with the ballpark. Washington, D.C., is looking to its new major league ballpark, set to open in the new year, as the first step in redeveloping a historic waterfront along the Anacostia River. Several parcels will be developed to include more than 12 million square feet of new office space, entertainment, shopping and a "waterfront destination." "There's no question that the stadium has actually accelerated the pace of development in the area," said Greg O'Dell, chief executive officer of the District of Columbia Sports and Entertainment Commission. The $611 million ballpark, which will house the Nationals major league baseball team, is scheduled to open in time for next year's exhibition games. Although construction is proceeding, many of the retail and office structures will be opening from 2009 to 2011. Monument Realty Vice President Amy Phillips, whose firm is developing the office and shopping district around the ballpark, said the area's renewal had actually begun shortly after 2000 with plans to build more office space in the area. But the stadium has added a new element. "The stadium has given everything a shot in the arm," she said. Beyond creating new neighborhoods and transforming urban districts, developers see more immediate benefits from marrying retail and entertainment uses with sports stadia. "Shoppertainment" is the name being given by planners and developers to a strategy that aims to attract more shoppers from further distances and entice them to spend more time and money. In contrast to strip malls and outlet "villages," the new sports- and entertainment-driven retail hybrids can tempt shoppers with far more than sales on sneakers or flat screen TVs. That, retail experts say, means visitors to centers like Patriot Place are as likely to come for nightclub shows, movies or to view the new Patriots Hall of Fame as well as to shop. Since visitors will have more to do at a stadium-retail complex than at a typical mall, the theory goes, shoppers will be willing to travel further and spend more time when they arrive. That's important, Kavanagh said, because studies indicate that the longer visitors stay, the more dollars they spend. Kavanagh said tenants at the new Patriot Place appear to have been carefully chosen to vary the shopper "experience" and provide multiple reasons for visitors to come long distances in search of something more than a simple shopping trip. In particular, he said, Bass Pro Shops is regarded by many as a tourist attraction in itself, with an indoor stream and waterfall, a 40-foot fiberglass whale and its own cafe. Some Bass Pro locations, Kavanagh said, are able to draw as many as 20,000 visitors a day. A newly announced CBS theme restaurant will provide a pop culture connection as well as capitalize on the TV network's connection with the NFL through football telecasts. Patriot Place also will offer other unique-to-New England features, such as the Hall of Fame and a 500-seat, music and comedy nightclub, in addition to more pedestrian tenants like Circuit City. While the construction of Gillette Stadium in 2000 came with the realization that an adjacent "economic development area" might eventually provide prime space for a hotel or other type of development, the Patriot Place concept took time to hatch, Kraft spokesman Stacy James said. "After a couple of years, there was an assessment of what else could we do," he said. That process was assisted by a corps of holdovers from the stadium project, including Patriot Place Project Director Ted Fire. The early identification of Bass Pro Shops as a major tenant aided in helping other pieces of the Patriot Place puzzle to fall into place. James said the guiding principal in Kraft's stewardship of Patriot Place was that it rise above the ordinary. "One could argue that Bob Kraft didn't need to undertake an additional risk like this," James said. "But Bob Kraft looks at this as a legacy. And as always, when the Krafts put their name to something, it has to be quality." While considerable planning has gone into executing the Patriot Place strategy, retail expert Kavanagh cautions that traffic concerns - especially during times when major events are scheduled at the stadium - will have to be adequately addressed if Patriot Place is to hold onto the droves of visitors its developers hope to attract. "Parking and ease of access and egress could be a problem when there's an event," Kavanagh said. If that leads to shopper frustration, that could be problematic both for "shoppertainment" and retail tenants. "People have too many options in the form of malls and online shopping. With the backups you already expect at major shopping destinations at Christmas, customers may not be willing to put up with that on a regular basis," Kavanagh said. RICK FOSTER can be reached at 508-236-0360 or at rfoster@thesunchronicle.com.