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America's downtowns are changing. Storefronts that used to showcase clothes or gifts are now giving way to gym, spas and salons. In fact, last year, more retail space went to shops offering services rather than things for the very first time. NPR's Alina Selyukh explains.
ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: Consider the town of Ridgewood, New Jersey. It's small. You can reach almost anywhere in five, 10 minutes driving. Technically, it's a commuter suburb of New York with a busy train station and a downtown like a postcard.
JOAN GROOME: This is East Ridgewood Avenue. That's Oak Street. That's Chestnut, named after trees.
SELYUKH: Joan Groome runs the local chamber of commerce.
GROOME: Ridgewood has always been known as the place to go shopping - lots of little, tiny stores. Now, over here where it says Bareburger, that was Woolworth's.
SELYUKH: A legendary department store that sprawled across the country a century ago. It used pneumatic tubes to send money to the back room.
GROOME: And when you paid, gave him the little money, had a little canister, and the little canister would go (imitating money whooshing through canister).
SELYUKH: Pushed by air pressure in the tube. A lot has changed since then. Groome moved to Ridgewood in 1968 to start a ski shop. She watched a wave of big-box chains. Then a wave of banks took over. The local shops like hers strived, survived, went under. New ones opened. Then in the past few years, a new shift came to this downtown, so dramatic, it's almost funny.
GROOME: We have 11 barbershops...
SELYUKH: No.
GROOME: ...In town.
SELYUKH: No.
Eleven barbershops, dozens of coffee shops, over a hundred restaurants, med spas, a stretching studio, Pilates.
And it seems like there's an exorbitant amount of ice cream shops around here.
GROOME: And that's kind of new-ish. So we got one here, one here. One, two, three.
SELYUKH: Across the street from each other.
GROOME: Right? And...
SELYUKH: There's more.
On main streets all across the country, retail spaces that used to have shops selling stuff are increasingly leased for food and services. That's according to data from the real estate firm CoStar. In the 20 biggest cities, for example, retail tenants are declining for the third year in a row, while personal services and entertainment are ballooning.
JOHN MERCER: The escape rooms, golf-based concepts, throwing axes or social darts, you know, gaming concept.
SELYUKH: John Mercer tracks retail at the analytics firm Coresight Research.
MERCER: Over the very long term, consumers have switched a lot of spending from retail goods to services, in terms of share of wallet.
SELYUKH: This is often driven by wealthier shoppers who have more money to spare. And some of it is what's in on trend - wellness, beauty, fitness. But it's also a reflection of how we shop when we do.
MERCER: Consumers don't need, necessarily, to go to physical spaces to just make a purchase anymore.
SELYUKH: Everything is at your fingertips online, which means people who go out to shop are looking for fun, an activity, or as Joan Groome puts it...
GROOME: You can't stroll Amazon.
SELYUKH: You can't stroll Amazon. And as we stroll Ridgewood's main street, it becomes clear that the shift in tenants has people conflicted. David Logan is a store manager of Bookends, a bookstore that's been here since the '80s. It's now across the street from a brand-new, trendy bakery.
DAVID LOGAN: It's brought more business in, so people will walk out of there, and I've got my door open, so they see we're open, so they just walk across the street. Or it's moms with their little kids.
SELYUKH: And they stay in the section with kid activity books and Legos. And this is how it's played out in some of the busier malls. Malls add arcades or gyms as a way to draw people more regularly - remind them they have good stuff. The math is less straightforward for a downtown. Often, a dinner or a hair appointment becomes a singular destination, and people don't build in time to wander around.
GINA JEON: I wonder if that enriches the value of the town or takes away from it.
SELYUKH: Yeah.
Gina Jeon runs Hot Jewelry Box, a shop that's an explosion of crystals and charms, silver and gold...
JEON: Like a candy store for women (laughter).
SELYUKH: ...Where she custom makes jewelry and lets shoppers pick their own designs, trying to give people reasons to visit in person, and to keep even loyal customers, like Joan Groome, on their toes.
GROOME: Every time you walk in here, it's changed, rearranged...
JEON: (Laughter).
GROOME: ...New displays.
SELYUKH: How often do you rearrange your store?
JEON: Every day. A section every day.
SELYUKH: Jeon thinks more beautiful shops get people to shop more, while more restaurants don't. As she talks, she's hooking a charm onto a beaded chain for shopper Kate Ulrich (ph).
KATE ULRICH: I just like it 'cause you can kind of mix and match your own, and you don't have to pay these, like, crazy internet prices that we're all duped into paying.
SELYUKH: She's actually here the second time in two days for a green-and-red version of the necklace she bought in blue, green and white.
ULRICH: I got this yesterday for maybe, like, 50 bucks, but I feel like I saw something online that was like $300. So it's, like, they just upcharge everything on Instagram, 'cause you see it, you love it. You have to have it.
SELYUKH: Ulrich grew up down the highway and came as a child when the shop opened 24 years ago. Now she drives a half hour to Ridgewood to see her sister, who recently moved here with family. And they do exactly what local shop owners hope.
ULRICH: It's fun to kind of walk the stroller up and down the street. You can kind of peer into everywhere because it's something to do (laughter).
SELYUKH: They snack and shop, buying things and little treats along the way, maybe some of that endlessly available ice cream, strolling, which you cannot do on Instagram either.
Alina Selyukh, NPR News, Ridgewood, New Jersey. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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