Legoland Discovery Center to open at Plymouth Meeting Mall (PA)

[jaisonline]

this is pretty cool news for those living nearby.   this will be the 4th Lego-related store in the area (King of Prussia, PA, Christiana, DE and Cherry Hill, NJ).

http://mobile.philly.com/beta?wss=/philly/business&id=360823821

 

Legoland Discovery Center, a chain of children's attractions, plans to open a location at Plymouth Meeting Mall as the mall's owner, Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, seeks to drum up business at one of its worst-performing properties.

Construction will begin in the summer on the 33,000-square-foot attraction, which will include Lego-block play areas, a cinema, and a "Miniland" with Lego-block replicas of Philadelphia-area buildings, PREIT said Monday.

The attraction, scheduled to debut in 2017, will replace part of Plymouth Meeting's food court, PREIT chief executive Joseph Coradino said in an interview Monday. It will be the ninth Lego Discovery Center in the United States for Merlin Entertainments P.L.C., based in Poole, U.K., which also operates such attractions in the Boston area and in Westchester County, N.Y.

Lego Discovery Center's arrival in the Philadelphia region comes as malls respond to the growth of online shopping by attempting to offer experiences unobtainable in cyberspace, such as destination dining and entertainment centers. The hope is that such offerings will draw customers to their brick-and-mortar properties.

"We've seen the sort of advent of omni-channel shopping and Internet shopping," Coradino said. "It's had an impact on our business. From our perspective, we think experiential retailing is the key going forward."

While massive shopping emporiums with huge selections of high-end shops, such as PREIT's Cherry Hill Mall and Simon Property Group's King of Prussia Mall, have fended off some competition, smaller regional centers such as Plymouth Meeting have been hurting.

.....

But the Legoland attraction will give visitors a reason to spend time at Plymouth Meeting and, it is hoped, attract new and better tenants - such as toy stores and youth-oriented clothing shops - to the now-ailing indoor mall, Coradino said.

Merlin Entertainments expects to draw as many as 6 million visitors a year from as far as Allentown and Wilmington, he said.

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Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20151208_PREIT_CEO__Lego_Discovery_Center_to_open_at_Plymouth_Meeting_in_2017.html#2sPRRkDMWvB7AWRy.99

 

 

[Ed Mack]

Sounds cool...

[jaisonline]

it does.  i think Boston and New York are the closest ones to us

[gbg108]

This is great news. Right in my backyard

[jaisonline]

This is great news. Right in my backyard

Ditto