Shopping Malls in Poland – Is Their Time Coming to an End?

Abstract Retail plays a special role in cities, significantly influencing the functional and spatial sphere of cities and their development. Over the years, the formats of retail facilities have evolved, reflecting the theory of the life cycle of forms of commerce. In the mid-1990s, the first modern shopping centers appeared in the Warsaw, Poznań, and Tricity metropolitan areas. Since then, two construction booms have been observed in this segment of retail facilities (1998-2003 and 2008-2012). Currently, some of them are facing a growing wave of reconstruction, modernization, and recommercialization. Others, especially the oldest ones (though not exclusively), will be demolished. The aim of the study is to: determine the life cycle phase of shopping centers and the current development trends and its pace; diagnose the existing stock of "shopping centers" in Poland by location and time of their construction; and project scenarios for the transformation of Polish shopping centers in light of the 4Re phenomenon. For the purpose of the analysis, most of the existing retail facilities in Poland built from the 1990s to the present were taken into account, meeting the criteria of: a traditional shopping center, a retail park, an outlet center, department stores and shopping malls.