Development/Redevelopment

Virginia Beach, Va. — Free People has signed a lease for 3,200 sq. ft. at the Town Center of Virginia Beach. The retailer plans to open its doors in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Fort Worth, Texas — Trademark Property Co. is managing the major expansion and renovation of Saddle Creek in the Memphis, Tenn., suburb of Germantown.

Demolition has commenced on 20,000 sq. ft. of existing space on the southwest side of Poplar Avenue and West Street, with work scheduled to begin soon on 40,000 sq. ft. of new retail space for that area.

Cincinnati, Ohio — Phillips Edison & Co. has appointed Robyn Capuano Hays senior leasing director for The Shoppes at Parma, a $70 million redevelopment of the former Parmatown Mall, currently underway in Parma, Ohio, not far from Cleveland. The project includes an enclosed shopping mall, power center, strip center, outparcels, restaurants, and office space.

Store closings are hardly an infrequent topic in this space. As a barometer for both the performance of individual brands and the market at large, they are an important part of the equation for any retail analyst. Store closings are part of healthy portfolio management for any brand, and, on a larger scale, bankruptcies and reorganizations are a reflection of the market at work.

New York -- Barnes & Noble Inc. is teaming up with Samsung Electronics America to develop a new Nook tablet. The co-branded devices will combine the Nook software with Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 4 hardware, creating full-service tablets that also can access Barnes & Noble’s collection of more than 3 million books, magazines and newspapers, according to a statement.   

New York -- Women’s fashions and home décor retailer Soft Surroundings is planning to open six new stores, giving it a total of 18 locations, the St. Louis Business Journal reported.

New locations will include Richmond, Virginia; Lynnfield, Massachusetts; Alpharetta, Georgia; Madison, Wisconsin; Portland, Oregon; and Paramus, New Jersey.

Soft Surroundings launched in 1999 as a catalog.

Persistent winter weather took a bite out of Stein Mart’s net income in the first quarter, but the retailer rallied once the weather improved. It closed the quarter with total and comparable-store sales increases, and the upward trend has continued through May.

The company reported total sales for the four-week period ended May 31 of $109.6 million, a 2.2% increase over total sales of $107.3 million for the four-week period ended June 1 last year. Comparable store sales for the month increased 0.4% from comparable store sales for the same month last year.

Middleton, Wis. -- American Girl, a division of Mattel, announced plans to open its newest store at Scottsdale Quarter, an open-air lifestyle center owned by Glimcher Realty Trust and located in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The 12,000-sq.-ft. store is slated to open in late summer of 2015 and will be located within a new 180,000-sq.-ft. expansion of the property.

Sydney, Neb. -- Cabela’s Inc. on Wednesday announced plans for three new stores in three new markets: Huntsville, Alabama; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Woodbury, New York.