Development/Redevelopment

Japanese fast-fashion retailer Uniqlo is going all out for denim in Los Angeles.   The company, part of Fast Retailing Group, will open a special store dedicated to denim in the Arts District of Los Angeles this fall/winter. The new "denim concept" shop will be Uniqlo's 47th location in the U.S., and ninth in the L.A. region following the opening at Westfield Santa Anita mall earlier in September.  

Microsoft will open its third flagship location, which will also be the company's first retail store in London.    The company announced plans to open a flagship on Regent Street at Oxford Circus. The location, which in the heart of the city's retail district, is just down the road from an Apple flagship.   

Rue21 is looking towards the future.    The retailer announced Friday that it has completed its financial restructuring and has emerged from bankruptcy. The chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2017, listing $307 million in pre-petition assets. It filed a month after it said it would close 400 stores.   "We are pleased to be moving forward with rue21's next chapter of growth as a highly performing and distinctive retailer," said Melanie Cox, CEO of rue21.

Ikea is looking to expand its presence in Arizona.    The home furnishings retailer plans to open a store in Glendale, Arizona. It would be the company's second location in the state.  

The continued popularity and development of town centers and lifestyle centers have made it clear that retailers can no longer go it alone. They must co-exist in a symbiotic live-work-play environment, and that means they must also co-exist with the different demands and cost structures of residential and office spaces.  

Three restaurants and a hotel claimed four of the seven new out-parcels The Market at Czech Hall in Oklahoma City.   Developer GBT Realty announced that Hooters, Arby’s, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, and Sleep Inn have signed leases at the 160,000-sq.-ft. “regional neighborhood center” on Interstate 40.  

PREIT announced that it has fully leased the space vacated by Sears at Magnolia Mall, nine months after the store closed shop at the Florence, South Carolina, property.   Burlington opens in a 46,000-sq.-ft. space there this week. It will be joined by HomeGoods (20,000 sq. ft.) and Five Below (8,500 sq. ft.) in the spring. Also slated to open at that time is a 20,000-sq.-ft. H&M store.  

Design Within Reach has unveiled its new location at NorthPark Center in Dallas.    At nearly 13,500 sq. ft., the space is three times the size of the previous temporary space the company occupied at the center. The retailer partnered with New York-based architecture firm DFA to bring the new store to life.  

Amazon is about to put down some new roots in New York City — and is hunting for new employees to support the operation.  

To work in retail is to accept the inevitability of déjà vu. But what returns is often never quite the same, as can be seen in the current struggle by many shopping malls to generate enough traffic to remain viable. Let me take you back to the days of my initiation to retail in New Orleans (site of next week’s National Retail Tenants Association conference), when malls began rising in former fields and woodlands and store owners in all regions struggled to manage the change.