What Are Brands Actually Getting Out of These ‘Experience’ Stores?

Increasingly—for automakers, at least—they don’t seem to make much sense.

Actor Justin Theroux (left) and Mazdack Rassi, co-founder of Milk Studios, attended the opening party for Lexus Intersect.

Photographer: Mike Coppola/Getty Images North America

This week in New York, Lexus opened a gleaming, expensive new building that is … a bit ironic.

“Intersect,” a 16,500-square-foot boutique in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, is meant to allow people to “experience” the carmaker’s brand without setting foot inside a car.