Events

One of the country’s foremost authorities on the Americans with Disabilities Act delivered an in-depth look at the law and how it is evolving at this year’s SPECS conference.

“The enforcement of the ADA has changed over the past 25 years and new areas that have risen to the top include point of sale, ATMs and websites,” said Joan W. Stein, president of Stein Consulting, at the “ADA Super Session.”

If you live in a big city, you gauge your age by the changing real estate. As a kid and then as a teenager, I saw Shea Stadium and Giant Stadium being built. Both are now memories. Driving a New York City cab in the early ’80s, I rarely got a fare to Williamsburg and, when I did, I quickly turned around and headed back to Manhattan over the Williamsburg Bridge.

Retailers continue their efforts to step up design investments to improve the customer experience, but they should also focus on investing in customer safety.

That message was driven home during the SPECS session, “Safe Stores: Design Ideas to Help Customers Feel Safer” Speaker Andrew McQuilkin, retail leader at BHDP Architecture, explained that recent “active” shootings — when individuals actively attempt to harm people in confined, populated areas — have targeted formerly “safe areas,” including malls.

Five dynamic retail and restaurant brands — Altar’d State, Bentley’s Pet Stuff, MOD Pizza, Sugarfina and Warby Parker — took home the honors as the winners of Chain Store Age’s annual Breakout Retailer Awards.

The awards, selected by CSA’s editorial board and sponsored by Paint Folks, recognize innovative retail and restaurant concepts that are on their way up —brands that have crossed the “newbie” line, and are well positioned for growth, in store, online, or both.

New e-commerce platform helps retailer better serve shoppers

Ulta Beauty is on a roll — offline and on. It’s growing in the physical space, with 100 new stores on tap for 2017, and is also expanding its capabilities in the digital space.

Ulta’s e-commerce sales hit $345.3 million in 2016, and online traffic continues to climb. For its most recently completed quarter, e-commerce sales grew 63.4%, and mobile volume rose more than 90%.

Deborah Butler’s vision to remake her family’s Gainesville, Florida, retail complex into a unique, local phenomenon got a little clearer this week.   Butler has put noted local chef and restaurateur Bert Gill in charge of curating the dining establishments at the Stengel Field Food Hall at Butler Town Center, scheduled to open in 2018. It takes its name from the aviation school run on the site in the 1940s and ‘50s by pioneering pilot Carl Stengel.