Corporate Governance

Empire Outlets is New York City’s first and only outlet center so it was only fitting that a contract related to the major project was consummated at the retail real estate industry’s biggest show.
 

Ikea has broken ground for its second store in Ohio.

The new Ikea will open in summer 2017. The 355,000-sq.-ft. store is being built on 33 acres at the northeastern corner of Interstate-71 and Gemini Place in the Polaris Centers of Commerce development, approximately 15 miles north of downtown Columbus.

The retailer has contracted with Pepper Construction to build the project. The chain also will evaluate potential on-site power generation to complement its current U.S. renewable energy presence at nearly 90% of its U.S. locations.
 

The latest chapter in Detroit’s ongoing real estate revival is being written by a $65 million mixed-use project called The Scott at Brush Park, which features 199 luxury residences and roughly 15,000-sq.-ft. of ground-floor retail and restaurant uses.
 
Scheduled to open later this year, the five-story project is being developed by Birmingham, Michigan-based Broder & Sachse Real Estate Services Inc. and Southfield, Michigan-based Woodborn Partners LLC.
 

At a time when the world of commercial real estate continues to evolve in new and different directions, many traditional malls find themselves at crossroads. To survive, mall owners and operators must make significant and sometimes dramatic changes in order to remain commercially relevant and financially viable.
 

Cameron Geiger, senior VP, Walmart technology, has been appointed to the GS1 U.S. board of governors.

He will help guide the GS1 U.S. strategy for driving adoption and usage of GS1 standards within the retail industry. GS1 standards are used to uniquely identify products, services and locations globally.

Japanese specialty retailer Uniqlo has been losing money with its U.S. stores for the past five years, but is not ready to throw in the towel.

According to Reuters, Uniqlo parent Fast Retailing Co. Ltd. is making a U.S. turnaround a top priority.

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Specialty apparel retailer Express Inc. did not reach Wall Street expectations with declining profit and flat sales in a generally sluggish first quarter of fiscal 2016.
 
Net income slipped 1% to $12.9 million from $13.1 million in the same quarter the previous fiscal year. Outlet- and IT-related expense growth helped drive down profit.

Net sales stayed essentially flat at $502.9 million, compared to $502.4 million a year earlier. Same-store sales fell 3%, including a 1% dip in e-commerce sales.
 

Forget South Beach. Brickell City Centre is shaping up as the place to be and be seen in the Miami area with 11 more retail tenants added ahead of a planned November opening.
 
Eleven new tenants have joined the 500,000-sq.-ft. Brickell City Centre retail development scheduled to open this November in an area of Miami developers of the project describe as underserved.