Development/Redevelopment

Developers of a 350,000-sq.-ft. outlet mall in Staten Island’s burgeoning St. George district have looked across the New York Narrows to enlist the help of one of Manhattan’s most noted real estate brokers.  

Target Corp. is bringing its small-format store to the heart of Manhattan.   The discounter plans to open its first location in mid-town Manhattan, a 43,000-sq.-ft. store in Herald Square, just west of the 34th Street and Broadway intersection, and one block from Penn Station — and across the street from the Macy’s flagship.  

Detroit is one of the most encouraging and intriguing stories to develop in the wake of the Great Recession. With investment, development, and redevelopment booming downtown, office and multi-family momentum has spurred a retail revival. The Motor City is revving its retail engine and is well on the way to arriving as a true retail destination for the first time in decades.   

An official from the town of North Myrtle Beach in South Carolina is looking forward to more jobs and tourist income from the expansion of a shopping center in the beach resort area.   RealtyLink, a developer of power centers in the Southeast and Midwest, is about halfway done with its phase three expansion of the Coastal North Town Center & Village Shoppes on Highway 17. The 147,000-sq.-ft. addition will take the center size beyond 540,000 sq. ft.  

Hammer & Nails Grooming Shop for Guys, a new franchise that bills itself as the lone male grooming option, is set to open its first 50 locations in Texas.  Dallas and Houston shops are due by summer, and eight more are expected to be operating in the state by year’s end.  

Apple will be busy on March 25.    The company will open three new stores on that day,  including a flagship at Brickell City Center, a new mixed-use development  in downtown Miami.  It will be Apple’s fifth location in the Miami area.    The new Miami store will have  13-foot floor-to-ceiling windows, and a forum space with an oversized video display, according to TechCrunch.  

Despite the growth of online shopping, brick and mortar stores are still critical to retail success.   “Retail stores are not dead,” said Shelley E. Kohan, VP of retail consulting at RetailNext Inc. “The retailers who continue to embrace change in their business models will be well positioned for today and in the future."  

The Lone Star State and Golden State are ripe areas for grocery store expansion.    In 2016, more than 440 grocery stores opened in the United States, adding 18.8 million sq. ft. of space. And 27% of those stores opened in two states: Texas and California.   That’s according to JLL’s latest Grocery Tracker JLL’s latest Grocery explores four trends transforming the grocery shopping sector.    

Men’s grooming is one of the fastest-growing segments in beauty, and Hammer & Nails Grooming Shop for Guys is looking to tap into the rising consumer demand. The company, which provides hand and foot care, haircuts and shaves in what it bills as a "man cave nirvana,” plans to open 50 locations in Texas during the next five years.

Malls and shopping centers are not endangered, but evolving species, International Council of Shopping Centers CEO Thomas McGee told the Miami Herald this week.   “There is stress in the department store segment and closures. When you look at those stores as a percentage of retail square footage, it’s small,” McGee said in a wide-ranging interview with the paper. “But those spaces are big and prominent and they need to be handled in a systematic way.”