Shoppers walk from a new clothing boutique to a fitness studio, from the nail salon to an upscale grocery store. They can buy a latte from the cafe and pick up lunch before heading home.

This is the design of outdoor “lifestyle centers,” or outdoor malls, and it’s what’s driving their success as brick-and-mortar destinations, despite online shopping being easier than ever.

“Open-air retail is having its moment,” said Chris Angelone, Boston-based senior managing director and co-leader of retail at real estate firm JLL.

Since the open-air mall development wave began in Massachusetts roughly 20 years ago — to some doubt at the time whether New England would be hospitable to the format — it has never been in a better place than it is now, Angelone said.

There’s several factors at play, according to Angelone. Retailers overall did well during the Covid-19 pandemic and “cleaned up their balance sheets,” he said. Vacancy overall at these kinds of developments is low at 4% to 5% unleased.

Depending on whom you ask, the current lack of new construction is either a good or a detriment for business, Angelone said.

Real estate owners are seeing healthy rent growth and more demand than there is supply. There’s not much new retail space in the pipeline either. And due to zoning challenges and construction costs, similar outdoor retail centers aren’t likely to pop up in the near future, said Joseph Duquette, a land use and real estate lawyer at Bowditch & Dewey.

For retailers trying to expand, that low vacancy rate and low construction rate is frustrating, Angelone said. Still, Angelone said retail tenant sales performance is currently strong at these outdoor malls, an important health marker for the retail centers.

No one in Eastern Massachusetts is benefiting more from the demand on existing retail centers than WS Development.

WS is the money and engine behind many of Massachusetts’ best known shopping areas. Besides essentially creating Boston’s Seaport District as it is today, WS Development operates MarketStreet Lynnfield, The Street Chestnut Hill, Legacy Place in Dedham and Derby Street in Hingham.

WS has been in the outdoor retail game for as long as it has been a concept. Derby Street opened in 2004, with the others coming along over the following decade.

They’re doing better than ever, said Brian Sciera, vice president of leasing at WS Development.

Sciera said many of these properties have 100% occupancy. The least-occupied property is at 98% capacity. (He declined to specify which property had which vacancy.)

Sciera said the properties are designed to meet the needs and wants of customers, and give them multiple things they can do. They are designed with curb appeal at the forefront, he said.

“We have a crazy, insane, all-out focus on pedestrian experience,” Sciera said.

Customers should want to walk around, and if they pop into another retailer, or decide to stop for lunch or a coffee or a manicure or groceries before they leave, all the better.

They’re not designed to be weekend destinations, he continued, but rather are designed for people with 9-to-5 jobs.

Also, they’re designed to draw customers to come back, Sciera said — for people to return multiple times a week for different needs.

WS Development’s properties are 400,000 to 600,000 square feet, he said.

“You can build a project too big,” Sciera said. “They are the right size for the market we serve.”

The properties attract a certain type of retailer that performs well online and in physical stores, an “omnichannel” approach.

“The question is no longer whether or not to have brick and mortar. It’s ‘where’s the right place to put them?’” Sciera said.

Sciera declined to say how much rent has increased at WS Development’s properties with their current success, but it’s valuable on both sides, he said. He pitches the physical stores as a way for companies to build their brands in a more and more crowded marketplace.

“They know what we know. [The retailers] know that they’re going to have a positive halo effect overall in the market if they have the right brand experience for their customers,” Sciera said.

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