Vol. VIII, No 1, January/February 2008
In this issue
- Editor's corner
- Silverlake, "The Family Place," wins award
- Foundations Entertainment University – February 26-28
- The shifting nature of leisure time and expenditures
- Flavors for kids
- StoneFire Pizza Co. photos
- Trends precede innovation
- Current projects
[ Index of Previous eNewsletters ]
Editor's corner
Here we are already, in a new year. It's amazing how fast things can change in today's world and how history continually repeats itself. The sub-prime mortgage fiasco is just another example of lenders and financial markets loosing their common sense. Now we have the stock markets tanking as if investors thought we were heading into a 30's-style depression. The world is so emotional, but I guess that is nothing new since we humans are emotional by our very nature.
Fortunately, despite all the doom and gloom in the news, history will repeat itself and we'll come out of the stagnation, recession, or whatever is going on (you can never tell for sure, as the news media tends to over hype a lot of stories) and life will go on. And people will always be seeking a way to have some enjoyment with their leisure time.
Which brings us to our featured article this issue. A report on extensive research we have undertaken on what changes have and are continuing to occur with Americans' expenditures of their leisure and entertainment dollars and time.
This issue has other articles you won't find in any of those industry magazines that are supported by advertising, such as children's flavor preferences and social and cultural trends.
Enjoy, and don't hesitate to recommend our labor of love Leisure eNewsletter to your colleagues and contact us with any comments.
Randy White
Editor
e-mail
Silverlake, "The Family Place," wins award
 Silverlake Family Recreation Center in Erlanger, Kentucky, a suburban community of greater Cincinnati, Ohio, has been voted the 2007 Best of the City recreation center by Cincinnati Magazine.
White Hutchinson has been Silverlake's consultant and designer for almost seven years since early 2002. We have been assisting the center with brand and market position strategies, including a focus on the family market, as well as market studies and feasibility, architectural and interior design and general consulting. We designed more than $2 million in renovations that were completed in early 2006. We're now working on feasibility and design of a 50,000-square-foot addition that will support continued growth with fitness, health and swimming programs. Also included are a family restaurant and family and children's entertainment, with enrichment, play and celebration components. Silverlake Recreation Center currently has a $3 million water park addition under construction.
Foundations Entertainment University – February 26-28
The next Foundations Entertainment University will be held February 26-28 in Dallas, Texas. Foundations is recognized as the crème de la crème of seminars for entrepreneurs who plan to open location-based entertainment (LBE) facilities, as well as those who plan to expand existing facilities. Since the first Foundations Entertainment University, more than 50 graduates have gone on to open their own centers.
In February, all attendees will have a Tuesday evening front and back of the house tour of the famous Alley Cats Family Entertainment Center. Attendance is limited to the first 50 registrants. Don't miss out. The registrations are rolling in fast. Register today.
The shifting nature of leisure time and expenditures
Since 2000, we have been researching how consumers spend both their leisure dollars and leisure time away from home as it relates to the location-based leisure (LBL) industry, one of the industries we work in. With the beginning of a new year, we thought we would share with our eNewsletter readers some of our findings on changes that have occurred in the U.S. in the past few years.
Part 2 of this article, which we'll feature in the next issue, will examine:
- Current and potential future events that may impact leisure expenditures and the use of leisure time, and
- A nascent trend that appears to be impacting many Americans' value equation for visiting location-based leisure venues.
For some of our readers, this article may seem rather academic, as we have included considerable data and charts. We have provided these to substantiate the current and future trends we have uncovered.
Away-from-home-entertainment and food-away-from-home spending
First, for the spending. We went back to pre-9/11, using 2000 as the base year to analyze Americans' spending for:
- Location-based entertainment in the category of paid entertainment fees and admissions, including spending location-based entertainment venues; we will call this away-from-home-entertainment spending, and
- Food-away-from-home, which includes restaurant and eatertainment dining
The following two graphs show the changes in annual expenditures for both these categories from 2000 to 2006 for all households, as well as four primary categories of families with children:
- Married couples with children younger than 6
- Married couples with children, the oldest child between 6 and 17
- Married couples with children, the oldest child 18 or older
- Single parents with one or more children under 18
Spending has increased for all households and for all categories of families for both types of expenditures. The exception is away-from-home-entertainment for single parents, which has shown no change. What is interesting is that married couples with the oldest child between 6 and 17 are the highest spenders for both away-from-home-entertainment and food-away-from-home.
However, these graphs don't tell the whole story. While they show dollar expenditures over all seven years, the graphs do not take into account the 17% inflation that has occurred. When we look at the growth of spending adjusted for inflation, we find that away-from-home-entertainment spending has basically remained constant for all households, increasing only 0.5% from 2000 to 2006. For married couples with the oldest child over 18, spending has declined, and for single parent families, spending has declined significantly. Spending for food-away-from-home has increased for all four family types, but much less so for families with an oldest child over 18.
We also looked at the changes from 2000 to 2006 for away-from-home-entertainment and food-away-from-home spending adjusted for inflation for households by quintiles of income (quintiles break a category into five equal parts, each representing 20% of the category count).
The lowest 40% of all households by income saw a significant decrease in spending for away-from-home-entertainment. For the top 60% of households by income, away-from-home-entertainment spending has basically remained flat. Only the lowest and the highest quintiles saw any significant increases in their spending for food-away-from-home.
In addition to analyzing annual spending, we examined changes between 2000 and 2006 to the share of expenditures by all households that different types of families spent on away-from-home-entertainment and food-away-from-home.
The overall share of away-from-home-entertainment expenditures by all households spent by families with children has decreased by 4 percentage points, or 8 percent over the five years. Meanwhile, spending shares by families with children for food-away-from-home decreased by 0.4 percentage points, only a one percent reduction. Nevertheless, families with children still control 44% of spending on away-from-home-entertainment and 40% of food-away-from-home.
An analysis by the shares of spending by all households by quintiles of income shows some interesting changes since 2000.
Spending by households with the lowest 40% of incomes for away-from-home-entertainment has significantly deceased. Households with the highest 20% of income have seen some increases in spending for both away-from-home-entertainment and for food-away-from-home.
What is most significant is the shift that has occurred since 2000 in the share of all away-from-home-entertainment spending that the two highest household quintiles of income now account for:
Households with the highest 40% of incomes have increased from accounting for 70.9% in 2000 to 74.1% in 2006, almost three-fourths, of all away-from-home-entertainment spending. The top 20% of income families now account for more than half of all away-from-home-entertainment spending, almost 10 times what the lowest quintile spends and more than four times what the middle or 3rd quintile spends.
Although not as significantly changed, that same 40% of high-income households now accounts for 62% of all food-away-from-home spending. The top 20% of income families now spend almost five times as much as the lowest 20% spends and more than double what the 3rd quintile of income households spends on food-away-from-home.
Another indicator of possible changes to consumers' spending on away-from-home-entertainment and food-away-from-home is the percentage of their total expenditures on these two categories. This time we also looked at spending on food-at-home and total food spending.
Overall, almost all types of households are spending a smaller percentage of their total expenditures on food, both at home and away from home. However, married couples with the oldest child 17 or younger and single parents have increased their spending share on food-away-from-home, which is counter to the overall trend. It is also notable that households with the lowest 20% of incomes have increased their spending share on food in all categories.
Away-from-home-entertainment has not faired so well since 2000. All types of households and all income brackets have reduced the percentage of their overall expenditures devoted to away-from-home-entertainment, with the largest decreases occurring for single parents, married couples with the oldest children 18 and younger and the lower income quintiles. In fact, the lower the quintile of income, the greater the decrease in the percentage of all expenditures in away-from-home-entertainment spending.
Could it be that consumers are shifting spending from away-from-home-entertainment to other categories of spending? One possibility is that they are shifting their expenditures to television, video and music electronic equipment and services, including televisions; video recorders; cable television; radios; iPods; CDs; and purchases and rentals of DVDs and video games (collectively called electronic equipment and services), or to other entertainment and recreation equipment and services, including outdoor recreation, sports and photography equipment and services (collectively called other entertainment equipment and services). The chart below examines changes in this type of spending.
All categories of households have increased their spending percentage on electronic equipment and services. In fact, the increase in spending in each household category for electronic equipment and services is identical to or greater than the amount of reduction to away-from-home-entertainment spending.
Spending for other entertainment equipment and supplies has seen significant reductions, more so than away-from-home-entertainment for all types of households, with the exception of increases for single parents and the highest 20% of income households, and for married couples with the oldest child 6-17, where it has remained flat.
A factor that may also be contributing to a reduction in the percentage of expenditures that households are making on both away-from-home-entertainment and other entertainment equipment and services is that they are controlling their spending in those categories to save for cost increases in other areas. We hypothesized that two suspects were health care and education spending, which have seen greater than overall inflation cost increases.
The data proves this out. With the exception of the lowest quintiles of income, all types of households have increased their percentage of spending on health care. For education, families with older children have increased their spending the greatest, as have higher income households. This could be attributable to the cost of putting their children through both private schools as well as college.
We have also examined changes in spending between 2000 and 2006 for all types of entertainment for each household category, as well as what percent of that overall entertainment spending away-from-home-entertainment represents. In addition to the categories of entertainment expenditures examined earlier, all entertainment in the chart below now also includes spending for pets, pet supplies and services, toys, hobbies and playground equipment.
The percentage of total expenditures made on entertainment by different types of households has basically remained constant since 2000. However, the portion of all entertainment spending devoted to away-from-home-entertainment has decreased for all types of households, with the exception of married couples with the oldest child between 6 and 17, where there has been a slight increase, and for the middle quintile of income households, where it has remained constant.
So this leads us to one last examination: When we look at inflation-adjusted figures for all expenditures and for all entertainment spending, what changes have occurred between 2000 and 2006?
Total expenditures after adjusting for inflation have increased for all households, married couples with children and single parents. All entertainment expenditures have likewise increased in inflation-adjusted dollars for all households, with the exception of married couples with the oldest child between 6 and 17.
When we examine all expenditures and all entertainment expenditures by quintiles of income, we find that households with the lowest 40% of incomes have lost ground in both categories of expenditures, and the 3rd and 4th highest quintiles have basically remained flat. It is the highest 20% of income households that account for growth for all expenditures, as well as all entertainment spending.
So the bottom line for food-away-from-home spending is that it is increasing faster than inflation. Meanwhile, spending on away-from-home-entertainment has remained basically flat, with the largest increase in both categories coming from households in the highest 20% of incomes. The top 40% of all households now control a larger share of food-away-from-home spending than in 2000 -- 62% -- and they control three-quarters of away-from-home-entertainment spending. Households with children now control 44% of all away-from-home-entertainment and 40% of food-away-from-home spending.
Since 2000, households have shifted a greater percentage of their entertainment spending to electronic equipment and services, at the expense of away-from-home-entertainment and other entertainment and recreation. Increases to education and medical expenditures also appear to be placing constraints on entertainment spending.
Leisure Time
Next we'll examine changes that have occurred with how much time people spend on leisure activities. Two economists, Mark Aquiar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Erik Hurst at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, recently looked at how non-retired and non-student American adults between the ages of 21 and 65 spend their leisure time, and how it has changed from 1965 to 2003. Published last year in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, their study found that although the number of hours that Americans are working (market work) has increased over the 38-year time period, the number of hours they have available for leisure has increased by six hours a week for men and four hours a week for women. They found that any increase in working hours for women was more than offset by time-saving conveniences for things like cleaning and cooking (non-market work), whether it was microwaves, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, takeout food, pizza delivery or other innovations. For men, their number of working hours decreased, but was partly offset by the increased time they are spending for housekeeping and other chores.
In 2007, Aquiar and Hurst did a follow-up study of adults aged 21 through 64 who were neither students nor retirees for the American Enterprise Institute to examine what they term the "leisure gap based on educational attainment. They examined changes to leisure time use since 1985. What they found was that in 1985, average time spent in leisure was roughly comparable for men at different levels of schooling, whereas since 1985, there has been a socioeconomic split in the changes to free time. Men with more education have experienced a decrease in leisure time, but the amount of free time has grown for men with less education. The gap in leisure time between men with less than a high school education and men with a college degree grew by 14 hours. For women, those in 1985 who had less education than a high school degree had roughly eight more hours of free time than did college graduates. Since 1985, all educational levels of women have experienced a decrease in leisure time, mainly attributable to increases in the percentage of women working away from home. However, just like men, women with more education lost more leisure time, but the disparity increased by only three hours.
We delved into data from the annual American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to see if we could glean any leisure time trends that have occurred since 2003. The ATUS polls more than 10,000 people each year to determine their time use during one day of the year.
The data shows numerous trends, several of which are a continuation of the trends found in Aquiar and Hurst's research. When we look at averages for all days of the week, men have gained 4 minutes of leisure time between 2003 and 2006, whereas women have lost 7 minutes. However, if the time is broken down between weekdays and weekends and holidays, both men and women have about 10 fewer minutes of leisure time on a typical weekday, but have more leisure time on weekends and holidays; with an average of 7 minutes more for men and 5 minutes more for women.
On weekends and holidays, the socioeconomic disparity is widening. People with less education gained the most leisure time, and the most educated lost leisure time. The following graph shows the disparity in 2006 of leisure time, based on education levels.
In 2006, non-high school graduates enjoyed almost two more hours (111 minutes) of leisure time on weekdays and 81 minutes more on weekends than did college graduates.
As children grow older, parents enjoy more leisure time on both weekdays and on weekends and holidays.
Time-Pressed Americans
Some commentators call it time poverty, but whatever you call it, across all income levels and household types, most Americans consider themselves time poor. They don't have enough time to do everything they would like to.
Economists Daniel Hamermesh at the University of Texas at Austin and Jungmin Lee at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville conducted research into the time crunch for Australia, Germany, Korea and the U.S. for couples with at least one worker. They found the following results for Americans in 2003:
Interestingly, the results for the other three countries were similar. Korea had the highest percentage of almost always or often rushed men and women. Germans felt the least rushed.
In 2005, The Pew Research Center conducted interviews with over 3,000 Americans and found that 23% of all adults always feel rushed, 53% sometimes feel rushed and only 23% almost never feel rushed.
The proportion of parents with children feeling rushed or almost always feeling rushed was significantly higher, especially for mothers with children under 18. Even unemployed mothers with children under 18 feel rushed.
A 2006 survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that 63% of all adults feel that "having enough free time to do things you want to do is very important to them.
Conclusion
So what does all this time use and time stressed data and analysis really show about expenditures for away-from-home-entertainment and food-away-from-home? What it basically shows is that:
- Households with the highest incomes have the least leisure time, yet the most money to spend. Since 2000, for the top 20% of households by income, as their leisure time has been decreasing, their inflation-adjusted spending on away-from-home entertainment has increased, even though they have less time to spend it.
- Married couples with the oldest child under 18 have held constant on their inflation-adjusted away-from-home-entertainment spending.
- Single parent households and married couples with a child over 18 years have decreased their away-from-home-entertainment spending.
In many ways, the away-from-home leisure market has split off into two have and have-not groups:
- Upscale, higher educated, higher income households with children that have disposable income, but not much leisure time, and who feel the most time pressured
- Lower income and less educated households with children who have the discretionary time, but few discretionary dollars
When it comes to food-away-from-home:
- All family types with children have increased their inflation-adjusted spending since 2000
- Married couples and single parents with the oldest child under 18, which are the most time-pressed of all households, show the greatest increases in their food-away-from-home spending – probably due to the time-saving convenience of purchasing food at restaurants and convenience stores
And just as with away-from-home-entertainment spending, it's the upscale households that spend the most on food-away-from-home.
An across the board trend for all types of families and all quintiles of spending is that inflation-adjusted spending on all types of entertainment has been increasing. However, the percentage of those expenditures going to away-from-home-entertainment is decreasing, as is the percentage spent on outdoor recreation equipment and services and on sports and photography equipment and services. There appears to be an underlying trend to shift entertainment spending from away-from-home leisure and direct those dollars toward in-home leisure and entertainment by purchasing electronic equipment and CDs and purchasing or renting DVDs. Some of the electronic equipment and services spending is also going to what we call walk-around-entertainment (iPods, other MP3 devices and cell phones) and drive-around-entertainment (automotive music and video). Luckily for away-from-home-entertainment, all entertainment expenditures are increasing for all types of households, so the decrease in the percentage of those total expenditures devoted to away-from-home-entertainment is not resulting in significant decreases to inflation-adjusted dollar expenditures, especially for married couples with the oldest child under 18.
The not such good new is that across every type and income level of household, spending on health care and education is consuming an increasing proportion of total expenditures.
In the next issue of our Leisure eNewsletter, we'll examine recent developments that are likely to impact leisure spending, and then attempt to peer into the future to see how all this could impact the future of location-based leisure venues.
Flavors for kids
 In our July-August 2007 eNewsletter issue, our featured article was Kids dining out is not child's play, which discussed factors that go into creating a successful dining out experience for both children and their parents. This month we will explore in more depth flavors that appeal to children.
It's not easy designing food flavors that will keep kids coming back for more. Not only do children's preferences differ as much as their personalities, but their tastes change as they mature into adolescence.
Children learn a lot about food flavors before their first taste of solid foods, according to Julie Mennella, Ph.D., Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Children's first flavor experiences are in amniotic fluid and breast milk. "We've shown that babies learn about these flavors, and they will be more accepting of a fruit or vegetable if the mom eats these foods while she's pregnant and lactating, she said. "Once the babies are weaned, regardless of the breast or formula fed, if the mother gives the baby a taste of the food or lets the baby eat the food for eight or nine days, they will be more accepting of the new food. If the mother gives the baby a variety of foods, they will be more accepting of a new food. We know that flavor preferences established early in life track into later childhood.
"Children, babies, infants prefer things that are sweeter, and that preference doesn't decrease until late teens. They prefer things that are saltier. And some children may reject bitter more when they are young, according to Mennella. Gene variations play a role in making some children more sensitive to bitterness. "But we really don't have to learn to like sweet tastes, children are born with that, according to Mennella. "There have been studies that show sweets actually make them feel better. It reduces pain. Mennella also said that in addition to sweet and salty, almost all children like fat and about a third are partial to sour.
Children's flavor preferences change as they age. Younger children like it simple. "Younger kids, probably age 4 to 6 or 7, like single flavors and flavor combinations, according to Marianne Swaney-Stueve, global manager of youth research for International Flavors and Fragrances Inc. (IFF) in New York. Jessica Jones-Dille, industry trend analyst with WILD Flavors, Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio, said, "Products designed for young children are generally more mild and easier to understand from a concept point of view. Flavors are natural and simple for younger children.
Things change for tweens, ages 8 to 12, who have more daring tastes. "They are able to choose a little more what they want. They are trying to be independent and try new things, said Swaney-Stueve. This is the age when fantasy flavors are popular, which don't "necessarily even have to say what fruit it is, but it is fantasy in name, and has a generic kid profile, she explains. Examples of fantasy flavors are Arctic Blast and Riptide Rush.
 For tweens, the name is often more important than the flavor. Diana Rosenthal, marketing manager, natural products division of Mastertaste in Teterboro, New Jersey, said, "a survey found that kids are more likely to try a product because of its unique name, not the flavor.
At around age 12, fantasy flavors lose their appeal. Swaney-Stueve said, "Fantasy becomes too elementary and too kiddy for them, so now you can even go a little more adult with some of your flavors, like looking at some coffee flavors, though they may not taste like coffee. The intensity changes, too. As they get older, it doesn't have to be so hit-you-over-the-head strong, and the profile is actually changing, too. Finally, by the time kids reach their teens, their flavor preferences switch from kiddy, artificial, candy-type notes to more true-to-fruit.
Markus Eckert, technical vice president for Mastertaste, points out that teenagers tend to prefer products with flavors generally thought of as adult or grown-up. He said, "Chocolate and coffee are increasingly popular to a teenager wanting to appear older and more mature. . . In addition, teenagers tend to be attracted to extremes, such as extra caffeine, sour, hot, bitter, sweet, etc.
Children's flavor preferences are not consistent across around the globe. Swaney-Stueve noted, "Flavors in the U.S. tend to be a little more candy than a lot of the other regions. An example is that in America, strawberry flavor has cotton candy or bubble gum notes, whereas in other countries, strawberry tastes truer to a fruit flavor. Flavor intensity also varies around the world. Flavors in Europe are far less intense than in the U.S. Also, some European flavors are totally unfamiliar to American children, such as black currant. Others, such as pear, are very popular in Germany, but aren't found in many children's products in the U.S.
Cola, as popular as it is in soft drinks in the U.S., does not appeal when it is in other products, whereas in Europe, cola-flavored products do very well. In fact, in Europe, cola is among flavors that come out on top.
Traditional favors like chocolate, strawberry and vanilla continue to be very popular not only in the U.S., but also globally.
Kristen Heimerl, director of marketing of sweet goods for Givaudan in Cincinnati, Ohio, observes, "The longstanding belief that kids prefer familiar flavors is also being challenged as a result of the shifting environment. As a result of exposure and interaction with friends and/or families of different ethnicities, they are more curious than ever before about the foods and flavors their peers consume that are different from their own. This is driving a shift toward greater exploration and acceptance of 'new' foods and flavors.
 Kids flavor preferences are always evolving. Watermelon is one example of a flavor that has changed over time. According to Swaney-Stueve, the old nostalgia candyish watermelon "has evolved. Now kids like true-to-fruit watermelon. So the watermelon [flavors] we have now that kids are eating has green notes. It's not so candy fantasy. It actually really does taste like watermelon. That's probably the biggest of the mainstream flavors that we've seen a shift in over the last probably five years.
Jones-Dille noted there is a general movement that "flavors for kids are becoming more and more natural tasting - closer to the sweetness, acidity and flavor profile of the real fruit.
According to Swaney-Stueve, new combinations of old flavors are proving popular with younger children. "Raspberry-watermelon is one that's been getting a lot of appeal lately. We are seeing some appeal for peach-berry, which is surprising... I think we made the assumption that peach was too adult or too fuzzy, but it's turning out to be one that they are actually very positive towards right now.
When it comes to parents, health matters are front and center. However, with healthy foods for children, it's important to maintain taste. "Moms are going to know it's healthy, but the kids still want it to be for them and to taste good, cautioned Mary-Ellen Callahan, youth research analyst for IFF. "We've found in focus groups, moms say that if the kids didn't finish the box, they aren't going to go back and buy it again. They are going to buy foods that kids will actually eat.
StoneFire Pizza Co. photos
We recently had professional photos taken of the StoneFire Pizza Co. family buffet-entertainment center we designed and produced in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which has now been in operation more than a year. StoneFire Pizza Co. is the first family buffet-entertainment center specifically designed to target the upscale family market. Check out the photos.
Click here to start slide show of photos
To learn more about the second StoneFire Pizza Co. currently under development, see Current Projects below.
Trends precede innovation
A trend is a way to describe the direction in which we are headed, compared to where we are now. DYG, Inc., a leader in cultural research, recently conducted a survey of more than 4,000 Americans across the country to provide deeper insight into social and demographics trends. They identified seven trends, two that are global, and five that are U.S. specific. These trends should have a significant impact on away-from-home-dining and away-from-home entertainment, including the design of the facilities.
The global trends:
Globalization
This refers to increasing connectivity and worldwide interdependence in economic, technological, cultural, political and ecological realms.
Technology
Global telecommunications have resulted in the free flow of goods, information, ideas and knowledge, significantly contributing to economic and social change
Trends more unique to the U.S.:
Connectedness
This is the growing trend to feel connected to family, friends, co-workers and community. Connectedness is a particularly strong value for Generation-Y, who prefers open, social and casual settings.
Choice
Edward Rosenthal, author of The Era of Choice, argues that choice, and having to make choices, has become the most important influence in our personal lives and our cultural expression. People want to have control over and make choices about how they use their time, the environments they spend their time in, and how they feel about those environments.
The new power of women
Women have now reached a critical mass as decision-makers when it comes to lifestyle, work style and creative expression. Women will exercise increasing influence on business and society. When it comes to design, women experience a stronger connection between the physical environment and satisfaction than men do, i.e., the design of an environment is far more important to women when it comes to whether they enjoy their experience in it.
The health imperative
Women are driving this key trend: the increasing importance of health, well-being, and work/life balance. These attributes of the Health Imperative are fast becoming a status symbol in American society. The design of physical environments needs to support the Health Imperative to be in sync with healthy living goals.
Search for the valuable life
The research says that a unique moment in history occurred in 2001 with the convergence of a number of forces, from 9/11 to corporate scandals to the dot-com bust, causing a shift in cultural values significant enough to be considered the beginning of a new cultural era. The Valuable Life is all about adding meaning to life and being significant, such as having an impact on the future, personal sacrifice and personal responsibility. The trend is about 'being good by doing good' and 'leaving a legacy' or having a positive impact on the world. The Valuable Life trend is also evidenced by individuals wanting to work for and do business with companies that do good deeds and help make a better society and world.
Current projects
Story Stores, Inc. – RoadStoryUSA, somewhere in U.S.A.
Assisting Story Stores with concept development, attendance and financial projections and design of their innovative RoadStoryUSA concept that combines learning, playing, shopping, and dining in a single venue.
Western Texas, U.S.A. – Cinema-restaurant-entertainment-bowling complex
Developing plans for a 65,000-square-foot entertainment center that includes six movie theaters, bowling, a destination restaurant, family entertainment attractions and games, and party and meeting rooms.
Lagos, Nigeria – Children's play and discovery (edutainment) center
Completing preliminary plans, cost estimate and financial projections for a 4,190- square-meter (45,000 square feet) children's edutainment and enrichment center that will also include a learn-to-swim pool.
BellaBoo's Children's Play & Discovery Center – Three Rivers Park, Lake County, Indiana U.S.A.
The building shell is up and watertight on this 23,000-square-foot children's discovery and play (edutainment) center we designed for the Lake Country Parks and Recreation Department. Equipment procurement is being completed. Opening is projected for late spring 2008.
  
Montgomery, Alabama, U.S.A. – Hotel, bowling, restaurant, meeting and conference center and family entertainment complex
Working with the owner of an existing hotel on expansion to include a meeting and conference center, destination restaurant and a family entertainment center with bowling.
Play Café, somewhere in Wisconsin, U.S.A.
Assisting client with market feasibility and site selection for a play café project.
Walters' Pumpkin Patch, Burns, Kansas, U.S.A.
Assisting this existing fall agritainment attraction with master planning for expansion and improved traffic flow, throughput and sales.
StoneFire Pizza Co. #2, Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
We have completed full architectural, interior, kitchen and site design for the 2nd StoneFire Pizza Co. facility to be located in Kenosha, Wisconsin that is currently under construction. We are now working on procurement of all furniture and equipment. This upscale family pizza buffet-entertainment center will be located in a 54,000 square foot building with five dining rooms with seating for 740 guests, dedicated birthday party rooms, seven major indoor attractions and outdoor attractions including miniature golf and a discovery play garden. Opening late 2008/early 2009.
Nibbles' Play Café – Wheeling, Illinois, U.S.A.
Construction is near completion on this at-home moms' play café.
Central Florida, U.S.A. – Retail, cinema, entertainment and restaurant complex
Developing a master plan for a 35-acre retail, restaurant, cinema and bowling center complex.
Eastern Europe – Retail store
Assisting retail design of a 9,300-square-meter (100,000-square-foot) store with experiential entertainment and destination entertainment design components.
Cherry-Crest Farms, Ronks, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Developing a master expansion plan for this existing agritainment facility.
Silverlake, the Family Place, Erlanger, Kentucky, U.S.A.
Completing master plan, cost estimates and financial projections for a 50,000-square- foot expansion to this successful fitness, health and swim facility.
Family Bowling & Entertainment Center, Washington State, U.S.A.
Assisting client with initial stages for market and site evaluation for a family bowling and entertainment center.
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White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group
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