Where the Mall Ends, Another Economy Begins

The value of a shopping center does not end within its interior. Increasingly, access points, parking lots, and adjacent land are becoming surfaces where consumer flow is captured before entry, shifting part of the business toward the asset's margins.

Part of this shift is already visible in previously secondary spaces such as basements, where formats like La Casa de Toño and Kavak operate. But it is also beginning to extend into the immediate perimeter. This is where the case of Caffenio becomes particularly illustrative.

With more than 300 locations in Mexico, Caffenio has built a model centered on drive-thru and street-level units, with some locations in shopping center parking lots or on adjacent land—from Plaza Girasol in Sonora to its arrival in Guadalajara, next to La Gran Plaza Fashion Mall.

Under this model, location is not meant to draw the consumer into the mall, but to intercept them in transit. Unlike traditional retail, which depends on dwell time within the asset, these formats capture quick decisions tied to vehicular flow and immediacy.

This logic operates on a significant physical base. According to internal estimates based on SiiLA data, in shopping centers larger than 4,000 square meters in the country's main retail markets, parking areas can add between 30% and 43% on top of gross leasable area¹.

In practical terms, this represents a reserve of space that, under certain schemes, can be integrated into the commercial operation and enable new forms of consumption, including that last purchase before leaving the asset.

As a result, parking is no longer just supporting infrastructure and begins to operate as an active layer of the business. Beyond that space, value capture is no longer concentrated within the asset.

The shopping center continues to generate the flow—it concentrates it, organizes it, makes it possible—but no longer retains it entirely, as part of that movement is increasingly captured by businesses that do not require occupying a unit, giving rise to an adjacent economy that depends on the asset without being part of it.

For the shopping center, this introduces a structural tension. As part of consumption shifts beyond its physical boundaries, the ability to capture that value through rent becomes less direct, meaning the flow persists but no longer necessarily passes through spaces controlled by the asset.

In this context, the question is no longer only how the asset performs, but how the value it generates is distributed across its surroundings.

Rather than a uniform radius, a capture gradient emerges, where the ability to monetize flow decreases with distance but does not disappear. This creates an arbitrage opportunity: identifying points where movement already exists but is not yet reflected in equivalent rents. It is precisely in that gap between generation and capture where a meaningful portion of value is created.

This arbitrage, however, is not inherently stable, since the flow that sustains it does not belong to those who capture it, but to the asset that generates it, introducing a structural dependency. Added to this is the risk of internalization—when the shopping center itself incorporates these formats—as well as potential saturation in its periphery: an unstable equilibrium in which the opportunity exists but may not hold.

This suggests a gap between the income the asset captures and the value it induces in its surroundings. From an investment perspective, it implies that, for assets capable of generating flows, returns cannot be evaluated solely on operating income but must also incorporate the appreciation induced by their environment as part of the project's economic outcome. Otherwise, the asset's true economic value is underestimated and its evaluation is distorted.

At that level of detail—from valuation to corridor-level performance—these dynamics can be further analyzed in SiiLA Market Analytics or via contacto@siila.com.mx.

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¹For the calculation, an inventory of 6,020,225 sqm of gross leasable area in shopping centers larger than 4,000 sqm across Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey is considered. A standard of one parking space per 30 sqm of construction is assumed, equivalent to approximately 200,674 spaces. The surface per space is estimated at 9-13 sqm, excluding circulation areas. The resulting range (1.8 to 2.6 million sqm) represents an additional 30% to 43% relative to gross leasable area.