Development/Redevelopment

NEW YORK — Express is taking its brand of specialty retail apparel north of the border this September with the opening of its first location in Canada at Fairview Mall in Toronto.  

New Orleans -- Covington, La.-based Stirling Properties announced that The Fresh Market is coming to New Orleans. The retailer will lease the 24,000 sq.-ft., two-story building on St. Charles Avenue, in the city’s Garden District, which was previously occupied by Borders. 

This location will be The Fresh Market’s fourth in Louisiana with stores already in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Mandeville.
 

Chicago -- SoCore Energy has been chosen as the solar developer to assist Walgreens in completing one of the nation’s largest solar energy rollouts. Construction of the first 20 solar installations at Ohio-area Walgreens began earlier this month, at stores in Cincinnati.

SoCore Energy is under contract to provide 90 Ohio solar installations for Walgreens. The first 53 will be completed by Nov. 11, pushing Walgreens’ total number of solar sites to 136.

Walgreens will lease the arrays from SoCore for 10 years.

Seattle -- Nordstorm plans to open a Nordstrom Rack in Manchester, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis.
 
The new 35,000-sq.-ft. store is scheduled to open in fall 2012. Construction of the store will begin immediately, according to Mark Sedgwick, managing director of St. Louis-based Pace Properties, L.L.C., which will develop and own the building where Nordstrom Rack will be located.
 

Chicago -- Commercial real estate firm Lee & Associates said it has added two senior VPs to its Chicago office.

Joseph Herron and Jason Sorce have both joined Lee & Associates Chicago as part of the firm’s expansion in the Midwest.

The firm also recently added Robyn Smart as a senior advisor in its Indianapolis office.

Herron joins Lee & Associates from Mid-America Real Estate Corp., where he spent 10 years as a retail broker. Sorce was previously with SRS Real Estate Partners and NAI Hiffman.

New York City -- Macy's is reducing the size of its store in downtown Pittsburgh from nine floors of retail space to six (plus a mezzanine).

The company has been moving some departments to lower floors since early this year. The store will remain open during the renovations.

"The store is being reconfigured for better flow among departments, making shopping easier and more convenient," the company said in a statement.

CHICAGO — Walgreens is looking to roll out solar installations at its Ohio-area stores, thanks to a new partnership with a Chicago-based solar developer.

The retailer said that it selected SoCore Energy to provide 90 solar installations for the Ohio-based stores. The partnership began earlier this month with the construction of 20 solar installations at Walgreens stores in Cincinnati. Walgreens and SoCore Energy said that the first 53 solar installations is slated to be completed by Nov. 11.

Woodland Hills, Calif. -- LandMark Retail Group, a subsidiary of NewMark Merrill Cos., has partnered with Accubranch, a strategic planning and market research group that specializes in providing real estate advice to the regional banking industry.