Market Sector: Retail Development

Wuhu Suning Plaza

Energizing a CBD

As a pioneering international retail center, Wuhu Suning Plaza plays a major role in supporting the city’s rapidly developing economy. Designed as a one-stop shopping and entertainment destination, the 10-story structure features a multitude of international brands, an indoor ice-skating rink, IMAX movie theater and dining options for all ages.

Glass curtain walls frame the building’s exterior, creating a transparent window for international retailers, such as H&M, Uniqlo and Starbucks to connect with the local market. At night, neon lights transform the building into a beacon for activities. A bright, open interior plan creates a welcoming and easily navigable experience for patrons while a 600 space parking garage, outdoor pavilion, and multiple street-level entry points provide easy access.

  • Project Details

  • Location Wuhu, China
  • Client Suning Real Estate Co. Ltd.
  • Market Sectors
  • Size 1.29 million SF (119,844 SM)
  • Services

Crossroads Mixed-Use

Seeking to build density and add value to a property whose neighborhood was maturing around it, Crossroads in Bellevue, WA partnered with MG2 to evolve the urban-based shopping center into a sustainability-minded, multi-family community that leverages and seamlessly melds with nearby amenities.

Years of pedestrian studies, wayfinding strategy, and sophisticated design went into Crossroads’ U-shaped building and its positioning, ensuring the footprint lined up perfectly with surrounding environments and natural spaces. An approach that helps bolster multimodal exploration, walkability, and access to public transit, the campus seamlessly connects the public and private within its community.

Naturally, landscaping plays a significant role as well. Every edge of the complex is considered an urban trail, reinforcing the pedestrian-centric nature of the design. By converting an asphalt parking lot into green space, the team created an additional opportunity for the sustainable filtering of stormwater by implementing bioswales and rain gardens throughout. The effort resulted in 20% more community green space.

For its interiors, a thematic approach was taken to the design, embracing and enhancing the community and celebrating the diversity it fosters. Many units are two bedrooms, perfect for multi-generational families who work in the area. MG2 is working closely with the project’s interiors team to create a seamless, hybrid integration between internal and external experiences. With a color and design scheme that radiates the Pacific Northwest, there are endless opportunities for entertainment, including an activated public space and amenity-rich roof deck.

Designed as a community, not a commodity, Crossroads design incorporates a number of culturally-rich and thoughtful food options, as well as boutique retail space for brands to connect with residents and visitors alike in a highly socialized setting. The evolution of this predominantly retail environment into a sustainable, cultured, pedestrian paradise is slated for completion in 2024.

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Deerfoot Food Lodge

Food and beverage becomes the new mall anchor

SHAPE partnered with MG2 to design a food lodge concept at Destination: Deerfoot City. The food lodge will serve as a key social zone in the development, where the community will gather, eat and recharge.

MG2’s design blurs the lines between indoor and outdoor spaces, featuring a mix of programming that evokes an airy market feel including sit-down cafés, pop-up food carts and in-line and freestanding food tenants. The hearth serves as a main feature of the space, providing an array of intimate areas that invite visitors to stay a bit longer. The designers emphasized the connectivity between the exterior and interior social areas, employing folding glass walls and roll-up garage doors to blend the spaces.

The Amazing Brentwood

The Amazing Brentwood

Located along Vancouver’s SkyTrain, The Amazing Brentwood is a transit-oriented development that encompasses retail, residential, and entertainment. SHAPE, a well-established developer in Canada, partnered with MG2 to help refine the retail design strategies and explore future design phases for the property.

Seeking to create a unique and elevated experience for those visiting The Brentwood, MG2 employed a hospitality-inspired retail design concept. This experience begins at the moment of arrival, with a series of expanded drop-offs that draw in shoppers, evoking the feeling of a porte-cochere.

The team wove a curated retail experience throughout the design concept, emphasizing spaces oriented around comfort, ease of use, and a timeless aesthetic.

Tacoma Mall

Initially opened in 1965, low-density, suburban-style developments currently surround the Tacoma Mall. However, with the city council recently approving new zoning codes, density requirements, and infrastructure updates, downtown Tacoma is primed to evolve into a more urban, pedestrian-oriented landscape. 

In response to the city’s long-term, coordinated approach to modernizing its development, MG2 partnered with Tacoma Mall, reinventing it as a mixed-use property that incorporates new shopping, dining, and entertainment facets. 

The interior renovation of Tacoma Mall seeks to revitalize the customer experience, blending modern aesthetics with functional enhancements. MG2’s scope included a refresh of the common areas and entries, introducing updated finishes, lighting, and FF&E—creating a welcoming and cohesive environment. Additional improvements included upgrades to the food court, restrooms, and new signage. Scheduled to be completed in 2026, this renovation aims to deliver a dynamic and engaging space for shoppers and visitors alike.

  • Project Details

  • Location Tacoma, WA
  • Client Confidential client
  • Market Sectors
  • Size 1,335,000 Gross SF; 90,000 SF Common Area; 375,000 SF Inline Retail; 715,00 SF Anchor Retail
  • Services

Shantou Suning Plaza

The dynamic embodiment of a growing metropolis

Shantou Suning Plaza is a vibrant flagship that activates the urban port city in the Guangdong Province of China. The development’s high-end retail center, which features prominent domestic and international brands, draws people in with its external, wrap-around LED screens and transparent glass atriums.

Located in the city’s commercial district, Shantou Suning Plaza features two highly desirable Class A office towers. The development’s sleek, minimalistic design is juxtaposed against a lush rooftop garden and an open central court where visitors can find respite or participate in community gatherings. A destination, beacon, and haven, all rolled into one centralized experience.

Washington Square

When Sears closed their doors, the Washington Square mall—one of the largest in the Pacific Northwest—knew it was time for an innovative approach. Partnering with MG2, the shopping center sought a solution to bolster consumer traffic, revitalized the anchor position, and galvanized their customer base with fresh retail, restaurant, and entertainment options. The final piece of the puzzle would be a hotel, along with newly minted residential units surrounding an invigorated public park, completing the community, and binding it together.

Our team immediately accepted the reins to a plan already in motion, keeping the project on track while simultaneously creating a novel story to make it our own. MG2 designers took a contextual approach, playing on the notoriously sporadic weather of the Pacific Northwest, and our natural response to layer garments in reply. The resulting design used landscaping, lighting, and newly constructed spaces to translate our architectural story, bringing new vitality to where an anchor once stood.

Washington Square

Creating a layered transition from the traditional mall to a more organic, open space, we generated a fresh entry sequence for the shopping center.

The on-site hotel was angled to grant it more visibility from the road, while simultaneously exposing the natural area beyond. The experience crescendos with a jewel box restaurant building, greeting, and bidding adieu to shoppers as they come and go.

Providing unparalleled full-service architectural design solutions to the client, MG2 continues to work with Washington Square through the finale of their construction phase, with several high-end entertainment, food & beverage, and retail brands already expressing interest in the newly energized shopping center.