A former Pottery Barn at Tysons Corner Center is being transformed into a candy-themed play land, with a Twizzlers maze and cannons that launch balls into holes shaped like Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cups.<\/p>\n
Hershey Super Sweet Adventure opens at Tysons on March 6, and it\u2019s part of an accelerating transformation of the Virginia shopping mall.<\/p>\n
\u201cNationwide, we\u2019re seeing a variety of entertainment establishments now setting up shops in shopping malls, using the spaces that have been vacated by traditional retailers,\u201d said Jie Zhang, retail and marketing professor at University of Maryland\u2019s Robert H. Smith School of Business.<\/p>\n
Popular examples include pickleball courts, bowling alleys and game arcades, she said.<\/p>\n
The trend started two decades ago when online stores began replacing many in-person shopping experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic also accelerated the changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause consumers\u2019 purchase behaviors have changed, you cannot force people to go back to shopping malls just to buy things,\u201d Zhang said. \u201cAnd if retail is no longer as powerful as it used to be, then they need to convert or transform their places into destinations for other purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Studies have shown that malls that add more entertainment and dining offerings see significant rebounds in foot traffic.<\/p>\n
Experiences are in<\/h3>\n
The Macerich-owned Tysons Corner Center is welcoming two new attractions this year \u2014 both pitched as immersive and family friendly.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guests will step into a whimsical workshop where an interactive journey unfolds through hands-on games, multisensory experiences, playful moments,\u201d Kelly Easterling, senior vice president at Original X Productions, said.<\/p>\n
OGX previously brought the Friends Experience and The Office Experience to the D.C. area.<\/p>\n
Hershey Super Sweet Adventure is a partnership with The Hershey Company.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really inviting families to come in and explore together and have an adventure together, create memories and trigger those imaginations,\u201d Easterling said.<\/p>\n
The other incoming Tysons attraction is centered on slime.<\/p>\n
\n(Courtesy Hershey Super Sweet Adventure\/Original X Productions) <\/figcaption>
\n Courtesy Hershey Super Sweet Adventure\/Original X Productions <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n \n Courtesy Sloomoo Institute <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n \n Courtesy Sloomoo Institute <\/p>\n<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n This site will either be the eighth or ninth Sloomoo Institute location, depending on the pace of construction of another new Sloomoo outpost in Charlotte, North Carolina.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re able to do things that you could never do at home,\u201d Sloomoo co-founder and CEO Karen Robinovitz told WTOP. \u201cYou\u2019re smearing slime on a wall. You\u2019re walking on hundreds of gallons of slime. Your elbows-deep in slime. You\u2019re designing your own slime.\u201d<\/p>\n Easterling and Robinovitz also said their respective attractions have a lot to offer their landlords.<\/p>\n \u201cWe find those families, while they\u2019re coming to the Hershey Super Sweet Adventure and having a great experience there, they\u2019re also enjoying the rest of what Tysons Corner has to offer, whether that\u2019s shopping or going out to dinner,\u201d Easterling said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will definitely attract tourism,\u201d Sloomoo\u2019s Robinovitz said. \u201cAbout 50% of our audiences in all of our locations are tourists.\u201d<\/p>\n Sloomoo will occupy two levels by Nordstrom. A previous tenant was the Paul Mitchell beauty school, which closed in 2024.<\/p>\n Potomac Mills, a Simon Malls property, recently opened the indoor Kids Jungle Playground. Slick City Action Park, a waterless slides attraction, is expected to open by summer. And in the second half of 2026, Ace Pickleball Club is opening a location at the Woodbridge, Virginia, outlet mall.<\/p>\n They\u2019re joining Round1 Bowling and Arcade, Aim Point (an air-soft shooting range) and Off Limitz Adventure Park, which has Ninja Warrior and ropes courses.<\/p>\n \u201cAs malls are evolving, we really felt the need, that the entertainment component is what we were missing,\u201d said Bethany Webb, director of marketing and business development at Potomac Mills.<\/p>\n Webb said the Kids Jungle Playground replaced a women\u2019s clothing store. Slick City is taking over the spaces previously leased to andThat! and Buy Buy Baby, chains that were shuttered in 2023 and 2024. Ace Pickleball is moving into the former American Freight furniture store.<\/p>\n \u201cOur shoppers have really, really enjoyed that. You can bring your entire family, so everyone has something to do, right? And you can spend hours here, you can spend all day here,\u201d Webb said.<\/p>\n Even retailers are becoming more entertaining.<\/p>\n DICK\u2019S Sporting Goods started opening DICK\u2019S House of Sport mega stores in 2021, with climbing walls, batting cages, playing fields, and at some locations, ice rinks. One is coming to Annapolis Mall.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, the mall had some hard times in recent years,\u201d Zhang said. \u201cThe new ownership of the Annapolis Mall is investing heavily in, really, all kinds of transformations.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. has about 1,000 regional shopping malls remaining. A quarter of them, Zhang said, are in \u201cexcellent\u201d condition and should continue to do well.<\/p>\n The rest need to transform to survive, and Zhang said the entertainment options available are promising.<\/p>\n \u201cPersonally, I\u2019m optimistic that many of the remaining shopping malls will be able to successfully transform themselves,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Zhang predicts the way we view malls will also evolve over the next 10 to 20 years, from primarily shopping destinations to activity centers.<\/p>\n Even retail experts are rethinking what makes for a healthy business.<\/p>\n \u201cShopping malls traditionally would allocate about 70% of their space for retail purposes, to retail stores, and the 30% for nonretail. That included entertainment, dining services and so on,\u201d Zhang said.<\/p>\n Now, the experts are pushing to reserve as much as half the space for nonretail uses.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this might be just a necessary trend for shopping mall property management to not only survive, but thrive,\u201d Zhang said.<\/p>\n![\"child](\"https:\/\/wtop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/SLOOMOO-FALLS-1433x1254.png\")
\n(Courtesy Sloomoo Institute) <\/figcaption>![\"children](\"https:\/\/wtop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/SLOOMOO-VAT-e1771666382523.jpg\")
\n(Courtesy Sloomoo Institute) <\/figcaption>Pickleball at Potomac Mills<\/h3>\n
A new view of the mall<\/h3>\n