Sustainability

Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) president and CEO Pamela G. Bailey said that the association will honor retired Walmart president and CEO Mike Duke with the 2014 GMA Hall of Achievement Award, the organization’s highest honor, at its Leadership Forum Aug. 23 at The Broadmoor.

Increasingly, retailers are using ambient lighting to impact the in-store experience. Andrew Peck of Enlighten Luminaires spoke with Chain Store Age about retail lighting trends and the rapidly expanding use of LEDs.

What are the biggest concerns when it comes to illuminating merchandise?

Retailers are most concerned about the way products look, and enhancing the shopper experience.

Where does LED lighting fit into this scenario?

Lighting plays a critical role in retail, and is rapidly evolving to meet changing regulations and customer needs. Dr. Laura Prestwood Thompson, director of the TCU Center for Lighting Education, Texas Christian University, discussed how stores and restaurants in 2025 will light their interiors and looked at the technologies and trends that will impact retail lighting during the SPECS workshop session, “Lighting 2025.”

“The quality of light is key,” Thompson said. “You create an aesthetic for your brand that impacts the customer experience.”

Walgreens provided an up-close look at its new location in Evanston, Ill. — distinguished as the nation’s first net zero energy store — during a super-session at this year’s SPECS conference. Initial engineering estimates — which can vary due to the weather, store operations, systems performance and other factors — indicate that the store will use 200,000 kilowatt hours per year of electricity while generating 220,000 kilowatt hours per year.

Sales from new stores as well as a nearly 7% same-store sales increase bolstered Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage’s second quarter ended March 31.

Net sales increased 22.4% to $130.3 million over the same period in fiscal year 2013 due to a $16.6 million increase in sales from new stores and a 6.9%, increase in comparable store sales.

Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning technology is in the midst of a dramatic evolution brought on by a variety of factors, including regulations, retailers’ needs for technological sophistication, operational and cost efficiency, and ease of implementation and use. These and other topics were discussed in the SPECS session, “Evolution, Revolution: The Future of HVAC and Refrigeration.”

Session moderator Bob Keingstein, president of Boss Facility Services, asked panelists to discuss several pointed questions focused on different key areas of the evolution of HVAC.

Mixed-use project Celebration Pointe is set to move forward

For Gainesville, Fla.-area residents, these are exciting times. Celebration Pointe, one of the more distinctive mixed-use projects in the state of Florida, is about to hit a significant milestone: The initial phase of the ambitious, $170 million development broke ground in April with site preparation and significant public infrastructure upgrades.

A stellar retail panel — Mark Friedman, manager of retail facilities, Coldwater Creek; Eric Johnson, director of store planning, design and construction, Brookshire Brothers Ltd.; and Bob Valair, director of energy and environmental management, Staples — shared first-hand accounts of their LED deployments and plans going forward at the SPECS session, “LED Lessons Learned, Strategies for the Future.”