Development/Redevelopment

Dublin, Calif. — dd’s DISCOUNTS, a division of Ross Stores, will open a new store in downtown Portland on June 28^th in a former Ross Dress for Less location. Counting the new location, dd’s DISCONTS will operate over 140 locations in 13 states. The retailer is on schedule to open approximately 20 locations in 2014.

Walmart is enhancing its perishable supply chain in the upper Midwest with a new distribution center in Mankato, Minn., slated to open in early 2015.

The retailer broke ground late last month on the 420,000-sq.-ft. facility located a little more than an hour southwest of Minneapolis. Once open in the Spring of 2015 the DC will serve stores in Minnesota and neighboring states of Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Seattle -- REI will set up shop in two new locations next spring. The national outdoor retailer will open in Princeton, New Jersey. REI is also extending its presence in the Atlanta area, with a 24,000-sq.-ft. store in Alpharetta, Georgia.

REI’s 23,000-sq.-ft. store in Princeton will be located at Mercer Mall.

Cupertino, Calif. – Apple Inc. is planning to open six new stores in China, judging by advertisements for store managers the company has posted on its Chinese website, Bloomberg reported. The company is seeking store managers for units the Chinese cities of Tianjin, Chongqing, Wuxi, Zhengzhou, Shenyang, and Hangzhou, none of which currently has an Apple-owned retail outlet.

Conshohocken, Pa. – Ikea has plugged-in an expansion of the solar array completed in April 2013 on the roof of its 1.7 million-sq.-ft. Perryville, Maryland, distribution center. Installation of the new panels began in fall 2013, and since then have nearly doubled the size of the original project.

Grand Rapids, Mich. -- Meijer on Monday broke ground on a supercenter in Detroit, on the site of a former high school on the city’s west side. The groundbreaking ceremony comes less than a year after Meijer opened a supercenter at the historical Michigan State Fairgrounds in the Motor City.

Players from 32 countries have poured into Brazil for a month-long contest of extraordinary soccer skill, known as the Copa do Mundo, the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Cheering them is expected to be a total of some 3.7 million fans and tourists, adding an astonishing $3.3 billion USD ($6.7 billion Brazilian Real) to this nation’s economy. According to Brazil’s Ministry of Tourism, the average foreign visitor will attend four Copa do Mundo matches and spend approximately $2,488 during their stay.

Pittsburgh - American Eagle Outfitters Inc. is entering the U.K. with the opening of three new company-owned stores. The stores will be located in the Bluewater mall in Kent, England, as well as the Westfield Group’s London and Stratford City shopping centers in London, England.

The stores opening in the Westfield centers will include an aerie presence in shop-in-shop form. All of the stores are expected to open during fall 2014.

Boston – Specialty men’s apparel retailer Blank Label opens its second store in the Downtown Crossing neighborhood of Boston on June 30. According to CNBC, Blank Label, which opened as an online-only retailer in 2009 and opened its first store in Boston in 2013, plans to open six more new physical stores on the East Coast by 2016.

El Paso, Texas – A 20,000-sq.-ft. retail center is planned to open in El Paso, Texas, this summer. The center will be constructed by EP Riverbend Development and real estate broker Will Brown on a mostly empty site occupied by a single liquor store, which will be torn down.

The center will be called The Substation and offer spaces as small as 800 sq. ft. for rental. Plans include outdoor spaces and seating and a closed pedestrian mall. Construction is set to begin in the fall.