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For decades, the formula for a successful American mall was simple: Anchor it with a major department store, pack it with apparel chains and encourage shoppers to spend as much time as possible wandering among the stores.

Today, this model is rapidly disappearing.

Anchor department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue are massively shrinking their footprints as they no longer draw in the crowds like they once did.

Apparel chains expanded too aggressively, saturating the market. Countless chains – like Francesca’s, which once had nearly 1,000 locations across America – have totally disappeared.

The shift has been years in the making as online shopping slowly transformed consumer habits, forcing retailers to rethink the traditional mall formula.

According to Ward Kampf, president of Northwood Retail, the problem was more than just Amazon. He said retailers stopped giving shoppers a compelling reason to visit in person.

‘A lot of stores just grew to grow,’ Kampf told the Daily Mail. ‘You look at some of these tenants – Francesca’s had 950 stores, the Gaps of the world had more than 1,000. I think a lot of people just over-expanded in the wrong areas.’

Yet many malls are still thriving. The winners are no longer simply shopping destinations, they have reinvented themselves as lifestyle centers where Americans come to eat, exercise and socialize.

‘Retail today is different,’ Kampf said, explaining that brands now use online sales data to pinpoint exactly where their customers live before opening new locations.

That strategy is already playing out at some of the country’s top-performing lifestyle centers.

Kampf highlighted Northwood’s Domain NORTHSIDE in Austin, where Apple sits alongside Kim Kardashian’s first Skims store in the US and a growing roster of direct-to-consumer brands that chose the location because they knew their customers were already there.

By contrast, even premier malls such as Roosevelt Field on Long Island or NorthPark Center in Dallas have increasingly become destinations where shoppers spend half a day, rather than quick stops built around everyday errands.

Successful retailers and malls are offering something consumers cannot replicate online.

Rick Strauss, principal of Odyssey Retail Advisors, said the industry has always gone through cycles of brands rising and falling. He argues that recent closures are less a sign of a broken market than retailers losing relevance.

‘The market is actually pretty healthy,’ Strauss told the Daily Mail.

‘Brands that are relevant, new, exciting and have momentum are the ones expanding. The brands that have lost relevancy are either stagnant or starting to shrink because customers speak with their dollars,’ he said.

Retailers like Reformation, Alo, Vuori and Fashionphile are expanding in malls and offering shoppers something beyond a simple transaction – whether it’s luxury, wellness or personalized service.

The strongest mall owners aren’t simply filling empty storefronts, Strauss told us. They’re constantly refreshing their tenant mix before it becomes outdated.

‘The healthiest formula for a shopping center is to continually replace less relevant brands with more relevant brands,’ he said.

Kampf said that process is happening in real time. At The Forum in San Diego, the closure of a Francesca’s location was not viewed as a setback because several retailers immediately expressed interest in taking over the space.

He also pointed to online fashion retailer Revolve, which opened its first brick-and-mortar store at The Grove in Los Angeles, as another example of digital-first brands betting on physical locations that provide an experience.

But the biggest change may be what replaces the old department store anchor.

As those giants faded, landlords began turning to businesses that generate repeat visits – grocery stores, fitness studios, beauty services, restaurants and entertainment concepts.

Many of today’s strongest centers are anchored by grocery chains such as Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Wegmans, surrounded by retailers like Sephora and Warby Parker.

One example from Kampf’s Northwood portfolio is The Bowl at Ballantyne in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is set to welcome the area’s first Wegmans this fall.

The grocery giant is expected to draw shoppers back regularly rather than just for occasional purchases.

Kampf said the combination of everyday necessities and lifestyle experiences gives consumers more reasons to visit throughout the week – allowing them to run errands, work out, meet friends for lunch and browse stores in one trip.

Strauss said many landlords originally turned to restaurants, wellness businesses and service providers to fill vacancies left behind by struggling retailers. But those tenants have since become attractions in their own right.

Twenty years ago, he said, shopping center services were largely limited to nail salons, hair salons and tanning studios.

Today, boutique spas, blow-dry bars, cosmetic providers and specialized wellness concepts have become major draws that complement traditional retail.

‘We play the intersection of necessity-based retail and specialty retail,’ Kampf said. ‘We mix and match.’

‘The demand from investors for well-located grocery-anchored centers is really, really competitive right now,’ he added.

But Strauss said there is no one-size-fits-all blueprint.

The most successful centers, he said, are those tailored to their local markets rather than simply chasing trends.

‘If you have a market where you can offer a variety of reasons for someone to come to your shopping center, you’re strengthening your dwell time and your frequency,’ he said. ‘Having food and beverage, good retail and services gives people different reasons to visit.’

It’s a trend Robin Gagnon, CEO of We Sell Restaurants, sees playing out across the restaurant industry, as dining increasingly becomes the centerpiece of modern shopping centers rather than an afterthought.

‘Everything in our life is digital, but you can’t download a restaurant meal, you can’t download that workout, you can’t download that family entertainment center,’ Gagnon told the Daily Mail.

Gagnon said shopping centers are becoming what sociologists describe as ‘third places’ – communal spaces outside the home and workplace where people gather.

‘The coffee shop where you sit, and there’s a community table. It’s the restaurant where you gather. You’re literally breaking bread and sharing a glass of wine,’ he said.

That has fueled a wave of concepts blending food with entertainment, from pickleball clubs and golf experiences to family entertainment venues and wellness destinations.

‘You’re seeing concepts like Topgolf, Flight Club, Camp Pickle – all of these new kinds of concepts coming into play,’ Gagnon said. ‘It’s combining food plus entertainment.’

Looking ahead, experts believe the shopping center of the future will look very different from the malls many Americans grew up visiting.

The focus will no longer be on maximizing the number of stores, but on creating places people actually want to spend time.

‘I think that traditional mall that we all experienced growing up is gone,’ Gagnon said. ‘It’s not the decline of shopping centers, it’s a total reinvention.’

As more purchases move online, the shopping centers thriving today aren’t necessarily the biggest – they’re the ones constantly reinventing themselves with brands, restaurants and experiences consumers can’t find anywhere else.