RACINE - Regency Mall isn't necessarily just for retail anymore.

In the future, don't be too surprised if you find a fitness club, health clinic or dry-cleaning business inside the doors of Regency Mall. Mall Manager Curt Pruitt said mall executives are widening their horizons when thinking about filling vacancies such as the one created by the recent departure of Zales Jewelers.

The exit of Zales, which opted not to renew its five-year lease, was no surprise to Pruitt. "We've known for a year that they did not plan to renew," he said. "They had just underperformed."

It was just too hard for Zales to crack the hold that the mall's other four jewelry stores - Shaw's, J.B. Robinson, Kay and Rogers and Hollands - had on the mall's jewelry business, Pruitt said.

"We had those four that had just been entrenched over the years."

But Zales' departure makes one more space for Regency to fill. Pruitt declined to say what portion of the mall's roughly 1 million square feet of retail space is currently available, except that it is "a few vacancies more than we want."

He explained another challenge. "There are fewer and fewer companies for malls to lease to," because many companies own numerous divisions. For example, Sterling Jewelers owns three of the mall's four jewelry stores - all but Rogers and Hollands. So one company faltering can affect several possible mall tenants.

Forces such as those are pushing executives into new recruiting directions - at least for CBL & Associates of Chattanooga, Tenn., which owns Regency Mall.

"We're trying to branch out into nontraditional retail," Pruitt said. That might include health clinics, fitness centers, "or industries that find they're best-served in a high-traffic walking area." The mall counts 9 million visitors a year, he said.

"Or, if we had a new radio station coming to town," the mall might offer space, Pruitt said.

Central Bark Doggy Day Care was a recent example of a nontraditional business making its den at the mall. Although Central Bark opened in a former tire center on a mall out-lot, it nevertheless represents new thinking in what might fit at Regency.

"We're just trying to model what the American demographic is doing," Pruitt said.

"I don't think that we would be unique in recognizing we have to change with the times."

With no potential tenants currently close to signing a lease, Pruitt said the new approach is driven roughly equally by the recession and by looking at American lifestyles.

Mall representatives are pairing those new ideas with a genuine willingness to make space affordable, Pruitt said. "Right now we're offering head-snapping deals on spaces," he said. "We will consider and take every offer to the developer."

CBL, he added, is allowing mall representatives to structure leases "that let a retailer get good footing, and then we can collect on the back end of the deal."

Regency Mall

- Opened 1981.

- About 1 million square feet of retail space.

- 100 acres.

- 9 million visitors per year.

- 10 businesses located on out-lots.

- Five anchor stores.

- Mall owner, CBL & Associates of Chattanooga, Tenn., traded as CBL on the NYSE.