Development/Redevelopment

First, the good news: A strong retail sector is helping to drive 2016 U.S. construction activity, with retail construction projects up 24.4% year-over-year.

That’s according to JLL’s latest report on non-residential U.S. construction activity. On the less positive side, the report noted there is a cloud of economic uncertainty, which has companies laser-focused on lean budgeting and smart spending decisions.

It’s been a long time, but Rite Aid Corp. is opening a new distribution center.

Located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the facility is the company’s first new distribution center in 16 years. Rite Aid is currently awaiting regulatory approval for a proposed $17.2 billion merger with Walgreens Boots Alliance.

A company named after the first reptile to develop the feather for flight is opening freestanding stores.
 
Arc’teryx Equipment, a Canadian manufacturer and retailer of high-performance outdoor apparel and equipment, will open a store in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood this July. It will follow that up with a store in Chicago’s Buckhead neighborhood in August, and one at Toronto’s Yorkdale Mall in October, giving it a total of 11 locations.

A well-located, 30-year-old mall is about to undergo a major overhaul and add a much-needed shopping, dining and entertainment alternative in the Myrtle Beach marketplace.

According to Misuma Holdings and Peak Financial Partners, Myrtle Beach Mall will launch a full redevelopment in 2017.  

Nordstrom has opened its second full-line store In Toronto.   The department store retailer opened a three-level, 199,000-sq.-ft. store at Yorkdale Shopping Centre on Oct. 21. It is the company's second location in Toronto, with the first, at CF Toronto Eaton Centre, opening in September.      

A store development executive from Gap Inc. has been tapped to head up real estate for Foot Locker.   Foot Locker announced the appointment of Scott Martin as senior VP – real estate, effective June 13. Martin succeeds Jeffrey Berk, who retired in April after almost 20 years with the company.    

Blue Nile is expanding its fledgling store portfolio.    The online jewelry retailer has opened its second physical location, at The Westchester mall in White Plains, New York. Blue Nile opened its first store in June 2015, at Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City, New York. Two additional locations will open later this summer: one at Tysons Corner Center mall in Fairfax County, Virginia, and one at the Washington Square mall in Portland, Oregon.      

Over the last 12 annual trips I’ve made to Las Vegas for ICSC’s RECon real estate convention (which officially makes me a rookie in this industry of 20-, 30- and 40+-year veterans), I have always been able to detect some distinct trends.  

That doesn’t as much make me a trend-watcher as it does a good listener.  The retailers and shopping center operators and brokers who attend RECon each year tend to talk avidly in the aisles about the current events shaping the retail real estate industry.

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.
 

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.