Tanger Outlets opens first post-pandemic outlet in Nashville

Tanger Outlets now has its first post-pandemic outlet mall in Nashville. The shopping center will feature more than 60 brands, including digitally native companies such as Summersalt, and local concepts like TailGate Brewery and Prince’s Hot Chicken.

• The 290,000-square-foot space is currently 96% leased, and CEO Stephen Yalof attributed that figure to Tangers approach to this new outlet mall, which prioritizes a blend of shopping, experiential, and food and beverage concepts.
• Many open-air centers typically have a “racetrack design” that allows customers to shop the center around a loop, but Tanger Outlets Nashville is built around a central park where special events will be hosted and retailers can put on product displays.

“Our vision was going to be to create the shopping center of the future. And how are we going to do that?” Yalof said. “We are going to use customer information to inform the shopping center of the future. That means we listen, we say to our shoppers, ‘What are you looking for?’”

Music city vibes: Nashville was Tanger’s No. 1 contender for building a new shopping center due to its growing residential population, a robust tourism industry, and the high-end tech firms that have recently set up shop in the city, including Oracle, Live Nation, Apple, and Spotify.

• Last year, Nashville’s population increased by 35,624 people, which makes the area’s growth the 10th highest among 56 other metros with a population of 1 million, according to Census Bureau data.
• About 25% of the tenants who have signed at the outlet are completely new to Tanger, Yalof said.
• The retailers are mostly local retailers, while the food and beverage concepts are more national concepts like Shake Shack.

“We’ve made sure that we’ve executed local, famous, popular on-your-bucket-list, things you have to do when you come and visit Nashville [type of] brands,” Yalof said. “Couple that with the best national names as well, all serving that aspirational price point, that customer, that we’re trying to attract.”

The big picture: Yalof took over as CEO in April 2020 and the journey to Nashville Tanger’s opening included restructuring the company’s executive team.

• “Because we did it so fast, we put a shovel in the ground, and we believe we’re building the best product and we are building the shopping center of the future. And we built the team to execute that.”