The mall of the future will have no stores

As bricks-and-mortar stores close, shopping-center landlords are rethinking how they use their space. At Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, Mich., Starwood Capital brought in Ford, which converted a former department store into a workspace for its engineering and purchasing staff../PHOTO: FORD LAND

By Esther Fung | The Wall Street Journal

When Starwood Capital Group LLC bought Fairlane Town Center in 2014, the investment firm had a lot of work to do.

The Dearborn, Mich., mall was only 72% leased, and among the vacant space was a sprawling former anchor store.

A chance call to Ford Motor Co. to sell some mall advertising turned out to be a game changer. In April, Ford moved its entire engineering and purchasing staff into space once inhabited by department-store chain Lord & Taylor. Ford is now the mall’s largest tenant, with 240,000 square feet of space.

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