Integrating living space and work space into a shopping environment is not a new concept — society has been organizing itself that way since the dawn of commerce. But in the Czech Republic's rapidly shifting shopping center market, the concept has only recently taken hold.

In 2001, the Nový Smíchov complex in Prague 5 mixed a shopping center with office space. The same idea was used in the Palác Flóra design two years later.

Enter Centrum Chodov in Prague 11, which opened last month. It is a sprawling complex that straddles Roztylská street and squats over the Chodov metro station. At 55,000 square meters (592,000 square feet), it is so large that architects had to design the building so it would not overwhelm the customer, according to Ronald Dasbach, managing director of AM Development Central Europe.

If anything, it has been the customers who have overwhelmed the center. In the first week of operation, more than half a million shoppers turned out. And development won't stop with the shopping center.

"This is only the first phase," says Dasbach. AM Development plans to nearly triple the size of Centrum Chodov in the coming years, increasing parking and adding both office and residential space. The firm nursed the 4 billion Kč ($163 million) project into being along with its partner Rodamco Europe, which bankrolled much of Centrum Chodov and owns the property.

When it's finished, the 18-hectare (45-acre) site will house the first truly large-scale mixed-use development in Prague.

Natural evolution

To be situated atop a metro station is nothing new for a shopping center in Prague. Access to a major highway has been done before as well. But AM Development also constructed and paid for a major redesign of the arterials that flow into Centrum Chodov to accommodate the forthcoming office and residential space.

Design was a key element as well, with an emphasis on atmosphere. Leisure elements and original artwork, including Bořek Šípek's bulb-free chandelier, are aimed at making the shopping center a place where people will linger longer and thus buy more. Although it opened in November, Dasbach says that workers are still fine-tuning lighting and other subtle factors that will keep customers in Centrum Chodov. These "finishing touches" will take three to five months to complete.

"Every city should get its own project which fits in the tissue of it," Dasbach says. AM Development plans to incorporate unifying design elements into the retail, residential and office spaces of Centrum Chodov, and to create public space for shoppers, residents and workers. The goal of this attention to atmosphere is to prevent a mixed-use site from becoming just another shopping center — an important factor as a growing number of malls crowd into the Czech Republic.

The drawback of a standard shopping center is that it becomes a ghost town at night. Ostensibly, a mixed-use site has a purpose even after the shopping center closes.

"In the city, you always end up with mixed-use property because you want it to function throughout the day, not just until 6," Dasbach says. The mixed-use center is nothing new for the rest of Europe.

"It is a natural movement," Dasbach says. "This happens as countries mature — at the end of the development line, there are these big shopping centers."

Following a trend

Centrum Chodov was called the first of Prague's "second-generation regional shopping centers" by Natasa Milic of Jones Lang LaSalle, the agents for the property. But according to Dasbach, that's wrong.

"This is the third generation of shopping centers," he says.

In the early 1990s, the hypermarkets came and the resulting shopping centers were food-led — that is, people came primarily to buy groceries.

"They were simple structures, cheaply built," Dasbach says. "The second generation was just an extended version of the first, with stores added around it."

Although these shopping centers were larger than the hypermarkets they enveloped, they still relied heavily on the food element to draw customers.

Dasbach maintains that Centrum Chodov is different. To be sure, the shopping center has all the usual suspects — a 13,000-square-meter Hypernova, a Marks & Spencer, and an H&M — but there are other elements that make it a closer relative to the new centers in Western Europe than its geographical neighbors.

The progression from hypermarket to shopping center to mixed-use center has been rapid. What has taken more than 30 years to develop in France or the Netherlands has taken one-third the time to grow in the Czech Republic. And at that pace, it's likely to end sooner rather than later.

"There will always be a certain market because of the regeneration of property, don't get me wrong," Dasbach says. But he adds, "In five years, all the major development in the Czech Republic will be done."

Rodamco Europe is already moving on plans to expand Černý Most in Prague 14. In 2007, the company will have a turnkey takeover of Arkády Pankrác in Prague 4 as well.