Real estate · Market analysis
Fitness brings frequency. Off-price brings value. The landlord’s job is to make those trips work together.
An occupied box is easy to show on a leasing plan. A reason to return is harder.
That is the useful finding in Placer.ai’s The New Tenant Mix Playbook. The report argues that shopping centers should evaluate anchors by the trips they produce, not simply their square footage. Fitness, grocery, coffee, wellness and off-price each contribute something different.
For landlords, the retail tenant mix question becomes practical: does the next lease add a routine, a destination, or another isolated stop?
A familiar name over the door is a start. It is not a leasing strategy.
Read the dates before the headline
The newsletter headline says off-price and fitness visits are up nearly 30%. The underlying table is more specific: off-price/value visits rose 28.6% between 2019 and 2025; fitness/gym visits rose 22.6%. Spa and wellness led these categories at 31.8%. Traditional apparel fell 24.7% over the same period.
Those are six-year changes, not a 2026 year-over-year jump. They describe category-level visits in Placer’s analysis, not every chain, every store or the center you are underwriting.
The difference matters. A long-term shift in demand may justify changing the leasing plan. It does not justify dropping a category’s traffic growth straight into next year’s rent assumptions.
Growth and frequency are different jobs
| Tenant category | Visit change, 2019–2025 | Monthly visits per visitor, 2025* |
|---|---|---|
| Fitness / gym | +22.6% | 4.2 |
| Coffee | +26.7% | 2.5 |
| Grocery | +13.8% | 2.4 |
| Off-price / value | +28.6% | 1.4 |
| Spa / wellness | +31.8% | 1.1 |
| Traditional apparel | −24.7% | 1.2 |
Source: Placer.ai, The New Tenant Mix Playbook, sections 3A–3B. *Average monthly brand-level visit frequency per visitor in 2025, not visits to a particular center or necessarily to the same store. Traffic growth is a separate 2019–2025 measure.
Fitness supplies the clearest frequency story. Wellness supplies the fastest growth in this comparison, but the lowest monthly visit frequency. Off-price adds value-oriented shopping demand without behaving like a weekly gym routine.
These are different reasons to lease a space. Treating them as interchangeable “hot categories” misses the point of the report.
My read: a useful tenant mix combines complementary trips. Grocery can bring a recurring errand. Coffee can fit around it. Fitness can add another daypart. Off-price can give shoppers a reason to browse. The leasing work is to test whether those trips actually connect at your property.
A gym member is not automatically a coffee customer
Fitness looks attractive on a visit-frequency chart. It may also create longer stays. Neither fact proves that neighboring tenants capture the spending.
“Longer visits, of course, do not automatically translate into cross-shopping, but they increase the opportunity for customers to interact with other tenants and amenities within a center.”
R.J. Hottovy, Placer.ai, The New Tenant Mix Playbook, section 3C.
That caveat should survive the investment committee deck.
Look at the route from the gym to the other storefronts. Look at the hours. Look at parking demand when classes let out. A restaurant across a difficult drive aisle may sit close on the site plan and far away in the customer’s decision.
In my earlier look at Placer’s retail-consumer charts, the operating lesson was to cut friction around the trip the shopper already wanted to make. The same discipline applies here. Adjacency has to work on foot, not just in a color-coded leasing presentation.
Underwrite the lease, not the category label
A growing category can still contain a weak tenant. A strong operator can still be wrong for a particular box.
Start with the business and the building: rent coverage, guarantor strength, build-out responsibility, delivery conditions, capital needs and the realistic cost of replacing the tenant. Then test the proposed use against parking, utilities, access, permitted hours and the existing leases.
The commitment can be long. Planet Fitness says in its 2025 annual report that its club leases typically begin with terms of 10–12 years. That is one operator’s disclosure, not a universal gym lease standard. It is still a useful reminder: tenant selection can commit the building well beyond the current enthusiasm for the category.
For wellness uses, distinguish the actual operating model before underwriting it. A med-spa, a massage business and a boutique studio have different staffing, licensing and premises requirements. A favorable wellness traffic line does not answer those diligence questions.
Retail foot traffic is evidence of demand. Tenant sales, occupancy costs and lease terms tell you whether the demand can support the deal.
The trade area gets the final vote
Placer distinguishes grocery-led neighborhood centers from more dining- and experience-led lifestyle centers. It also argues for matching individual banners to the trade area rather than treating a category as a single customer proposition.
Use that as a starting point, not a national recipe.
A premium wellness operator and a value-oriented gym may both belong in a “health” cluster on paper. They can require different customers, price points and patterns of access. The same is true of off-price banners. Category growth does not settle which operator fits your household mix, competition or physical layout.
Do not use this report to declare every apparel tenant obsolete, either. The category’s decline is a reason to inspect local performance and replacement options. It is not proof that an individual tenant should go.
Bring the lease-event map to the next meeting
The next move is a property review, not a wholesale tenant purge. Put expirations, options, vacancies and capital constraints on the same page. Then ask:
- What trip is missing? A routine errand, a destination visit, a new daypart, or a reason to stay?
- Which operator fits the trade area? Compare the actual banner and business model, not just the sector’s national growth.
- Will the proposed neighbors share customers? Test entrances, walking routes, hours and parking before assuming cross-shopping.
- Can the tenant carry the economics? Review coverage, guarantees, build-out costs and downside replacement use.
- How will you know it worked? Track repeat visits alongside tenant sales where available, operating conflicts and the property’s own leasing economics.
That is a more useful shopping center leasing agenda than “find another big anchor.”
The box matters. The return trip makes it worth leasing.