North Hills and Easton Town Center Highlight Experience-Driven Design
Ci Design Outdoor Malls North Hills in Raleigh, North Carolina and Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio have been named among the 10 best outdoor malls in America by Islands, an international travel publication. The recognition highlights a shift in retail architecture from enclosed, fluorescent corridors to curated, open-air destinations that blend shopping, living, working, and social spaces. Founding principals of Ci Design, Inc., an award-winning architecture firm, helped master plan both districts and continue to shape mixed-use developments across the United States.
The projects illustrate how retail design now prioritizes pedestrian promenades, shaded plazas, and programmed commons over monolithic indoor malls. North Hills replaced a struggling enclosed mall with a 24/7 urban district featuring lush commons, sophisticated boutiques, and layered streetscapes. Easton Town Center operates as a “town within a city” with manicured brick pathways, tree-lined streets, and intimate gathering spaces that encourage exploration across retail, dining, and entertainment. Both Ci Design Outdoor Malls demonstrate how landscape design, material selection, and spatial sequencing create social anchors within commercial environments.
The original North Hills Mall may be gone, but in its place stands what Islands calls a “refined slice of the modern South”—a testament to the enduring power of thoughtful, experience-driven design. “Gone are the dated, fluorescent corridors of the old mall, and in their place are lush commons, sophisticated boutiques, and shaded plazas,” writes Kareem Gantt for Islands. Ci’s founding principals master planned both the Main District and Lassiter District in partnership with Kane Realty Corporation, establishing the framework for long-term success. Nearly two decades later, Ci resumed the design with the Main District Expansion, adding more than 2 million square feet of office, residential, retail, and outdoor gathering spaces.
The design strategy for Ci Design Outdoor Malls focuses on breaking down scale and creating village-like circulation. At North Hills, the master plan stitches office, residential, and retail components around a network of plazas and green rooms that function as outdoor living areas. Material palettes lean toward natural stone, brick, and wood-look elements that age well and support wayfinding. Lighting design emphasizes pedestrian comfort with catenary lights, bollards, and facade uplighting that extend dwell time after sunset. The Lassiter District and Main District use grade changes and building massing to frame views, reduce wind tunnels, and define micro-climates for year-round use.
Easton Town Center uses brick paving, canopy trees, and low site walls to create human-scaled edges along its promenades. Storefront design guidelines encourage transparency, operable facades, and outdoor dining terraces that blur interior and exterior boundaries. “Easton Town Center ushered in a new era for the American shopping mall—one that moved away from indoor monoliths to outdoor promenades that feel less like traditional malls and more like a carefully preserved American village,” Islands notes. The town center’s planning incorporates fountains, public art, and flexible lawns that host seasonal programming, reinforcing the role of landscape as infrastructure for community life.
Today, Islands describes Easton as the heartbeat of Columbus, Ohio’s social scene. The planning supports walkability, with blocks sized for short strolls between retail anchors, food halls, cinemas, and office lofts. Seating clusters, shade structures, and fire pits extend comfort across seasons. For North Hills, the expansion introduced residential towers and Class A office above retail podiums, creating a vertical mix that activates the district 18 hours a day. Both Ci Design Outdoor Malls use experiential graphics, branding, and signage systems developed by the firm to maintain visual cohesion while allowing individual tenants to express identity.
Founded in 2009, Ci Design, Inc. is an award-winning architecture firm shaping diverse project types, from dynamic mixed-use developments and residential communities to state-of-the-art science and technology facilities and 24/7 mission critical environments. Located in six office locations across the United States, the multidisciplinary team provides exceptional services in architecture, planning, interiors, procurement, lab and manufacturing planning, experiential graphics and branding, and landscape design. The firm’s work on North Hills and Easton Town Center reflects its approach to integrating interiors, exterior public realm, and brand experience into a single design narrative.
The recognition of Ci Design Outdoor Malls signals a broader move in commercial design toward open-air, mixed-use districts that function as civic space. For developers, the projects show how phasing, tenant curation, and investment in landscape can replace declining enclosed malls with assets that perform across market cycles. For architects and interior designers, the takeaways include the value of shaded plazas, operable storefronts, layered lighting, and durable finishes that support high foot traffic. The success of North Hills and Easton Town Center provides a blueprint for converting retail into neighborhood, where design drives footfall, leasing, and long-term relevance.
