True: first-floor retail is as old as multi-story buildings. What is different about it now is the large number of stores that are accessible only from inside

True: first-floor retail is as old as multi-story buildings. What is different about it now is the large number of stores that are accessible only from inside a single building. I was in Portland last fall and there were these buildings on the river and one had a restaurant, a coffee shop, a spin class, and a work space in the same building, with the entrances near the elevators where tenants get immediate access. I've never see in that in Boston, San Fran or NYC, where the first floor is a business, but faces the outside street. The portland thing was like its own mothership on a block, rather than a bunch of mixed used places on a mile-long street.