Development/Redevelopment

Ikea has moved closer to breaking ground on its second location in the Dallas-Fort Worth-area store.   The home furnishings retailer announced it has hired the contractors to build its store in Grand Prairie, Texas. Groundbreaking for the planned 290,000-sq.-ft. store is expected next month. It’s expected to open in fall 2017.   Ikea has chosen Mycon General Contractors, Dallas, to serve as construction manager for the Grand Prairie site work and store development project.   

The parent company of 7-Eleven wants to more than double its store portfolio in the United States.   Seven-Eleven Japan Co. is looking to open thousands of new stores in the U.S., increasing its current total of approximately 8,500 locations to 20,000, The Japan Times reported.    

Hudson’s Bay Company plans to open Canada’s largest Saks Fifth Avenue store, in downtown Montreal.    Scheduled to open in fall 2018, the store will be co-located in the same building as Hudson’s Bay, which will undergo a multi-million dollar renovation. The new Saks will take up approximately 200,000 sq. ft. of the existing 650,000-sq.-ft. space.   

Magnolia Bakery, the Greenwich Village shop that ignited the cupcake craze with its appearance on "Sex in the City," opens this week at Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Central Valley, New York.   This is the first storefront for Magnolia on the East Coast, aside from its original location. It maintains shops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Honolulu, Japan, Korea, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates.  

Not all department stores are scaling back on their portfolio.    Von Maur Department Stores has opened its third location in the state of Georgia, a 165,000-sq.-ft. store at the Mall of Georgia in Buford.  

Eataly is taking its Italian food marketplace format to Canada.   The company announced plans to open its first Canadian location in early 2019, as an anchor tenant of the newly renovated Manulife Centre in Toronto.   Eataly, which combines food markets, restaurants, and eateries, will span three stories for a total space of 50,000 sq. ft.  

It’s 12,000 stores and counting for Dunkin’ Donuts.   The chain on Tuesday opened its 12,000th restaurant worldwide, in Riverside, California. The new location is part of Dunkin’s strategic westward expansion.    It plans to open more than 30 new restaurants in California this year with plans for about 300 new locations total to be developed in the state over the coming years.  

The new Hamilton Crossings shopping center in Lower Macungie Township, Pennsylvania, will benefit from an innovative new traffic control system that manages signal timing based on continuously monitored traffic volumes.   The system allows traffic approaching the center from a major artery to the mall “largely unstopped” by lights, township engineer Alan Fornwalt told Allentown’s Morning Call.