O-Map
Role
Student (Intern case competition)
Timelines
2-day competition (September 2021)
Oxford Properties, a real estate development subsidiary of the Ontario Municipal Employee Retirement Savings (OMERS), owns many shopping malls in the Greater Toronto Area, which collectively generate over 55 million visits per year. During the COVID-19 pandemic when city-wide quarantine restrictions were in place, many retailers in these malls closed their stores indefinitely, leaving many vacant spaces. Even after quarantine restrictions were lifted across the city, few retailers returned.
Background
How can we repurpose these spaces to add value to the customer’s shopping experience and generate more foot traffic in the mall to encourage more retailers to return?
Problem
Solution
Lunar New Year Event with Immersive O-Map
Cultural events provide an opportunity to promote cross-cultural learning, bringing many people from different backgrounds together. They also celebrate the traditions, culture, art, and food, forming a sense of community. Most importantly, they encourage social interactions and engage community members in various activities.
To repurpose these empty spaces in malls and generate foot traffic in a meaningful way, the Lunar New Year event, filled with arts and crafts stations, artisan markets, food stands, and walk-thru photo booths would help meet these objectives. Given that the experiences would be spread out across the mall, the O-Map would be added to the shopping center’s website and app store directory to help visitors easily find and access the events. It would highlight the location of each event, and provide a brief description with photos.
