Development/Redevelopment

The Woodlands, Texas – Conn’s Inc. opens two new HomePlus stores on Tuesday in Tempe, Ariz., and Houston. The new Conn’s HomePlus store format showcases furniture and mattresses in addition to consumer electronics and home appliances.

The stores are located at 5000 Arizona Mills Circle, Tempe, and 9567 South Main Street, Houston. The Arizona Mills Mall location is Conn’s third new store in the Phoenix metropolitan market and fourth location in Arizona.

Turns out, malls and grocers were made for each other.

A few years ago, Philadelphia-based Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) renovated Plymouth Meeting Mall in Philadelphia’s northwestern suburbs.

The renovation replaced an old Ikea on the site with a lifestyle component called Plymouth Meeting Mall’s Plaza Shops, which leads customers to the mall entrance.

PREIT brought in a 65,000-sq.-ft. Whole Foods Market as the anchor. 

L3 Capital invests in what it calls prime urban retail, which includes a lot of street retail in the premier cities. "We own retail properties in several neighborhoods in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago," said Greg Schott managing piincipal.

At the end of last year, L3 made its first investment in its hometown of Chicago. The company bought four retail buildings along a flourishing four-block retail stretch of Southport Avenue in the Lakewood neighborhood. The cost was $13 million for 17,000 sq. ft.

Seattle -- Starbucks Coffee Company will enter the country of Columbia, opening a store in the first half of 2014 in Bogota. It will be operated through a joint venture between the company's Latin American franchisee, Alsea, and the food company Grupo Nutresa.

Starbucks said it has "aggressive plans" to open locations in Bogota and other major cities throughout Colombia over the next five years.

Chicago -- Jones Lang LaSalle announced Monday it has acquired Means Knaus Partners, a Houston-based property management company as part of the firm's expansion in third-party property management.

The deal boosts Jones Lang LaSalle's portfolio of office space under management by 16 million sq. ft. of space with properties located primarily in Dallas, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Orlando, Fla., and Tampa, Fla.

New York — Luxury apparel retailer 3.1 Phillip Lim has leased a 5,800-sq.-ft. store at 48 Jones Street in New York City’s Bowery district. The space includes a 3,500-sq.-ft. ground floor and a lower level with 2,300 sq. ft. The store is expected to open in the first quarter of 2014. 3.1 Phillip Lim also has a store in SoHo on Mercer Street as well as a third U.S. location in Los Angeles.

In the transaction, RKF www.rkf.com represented the landlord, 48 Tenant’s Corp., and Town Real Estate represented 3.1 Phillip Lim.

Mount Vernon, Ill. — Hobby Lobby has signed a lease for 52,729 sq. ft. at Times Square Mall in Mount Vernon, Ill., and plans to open in the first quarter of next year, according to Pine Tree Commercial Realty LLC.

Pine Tree owns the 269,328-sq.-ft. center, anchored in partnership with The Sansone Group and Wanxiang America Real Estate Group.

Saint John, New Brunswick -- Walmart Canada grand-opened a 129,000-sq.-ft. superstore in Saint John, New Brunswick, on Friday, the first of nine “Maritime Supercenters” planned for the country by Jan. 31, 2014, said the retailer.

The newly redeveloped store, which signals the launch of Walmart Canada’s Maritime sourcing program for produce, features a fresh grocery section that will serve as a prototype for all Maritime supercenters.