Development/Redevelopment

Building stores requires a particular type of expertise on the part of the contractor. Chain Store Age spoke with Gregg Zysman of All-Rite Construction Company about what retailers should look for when hiring a contractor.

What are the most important factors retailers should consider when selecting a contractor?

The most important factor is to select a contractor that specializes in retail construction. Look for membership in associations like the Retail Contractors Association and a list of recognized retail clients.

Entertainment retail isn't what it used to be. Today, it really is entertaining.

Take Delray Marketplace in Delray Beach, Fla., a 258,000-sq.-ft. Main Street development filled with entertainment offerings, restaurants and retailers that give you something fun to do and something fun to buy.

"Our goal was to create an entertainment, dining and shopping experience," said Jason Samreny, VP leasing with Indianapolis-based Kite Realty Group Trust, the project's developer.

Here are several pure-play online retailers that are venturing into the physical space — or thinking about making the leap:

• Rent the Runway, which rents high-end designer gowns, dresses and accessories to women for weddings and other special events, will use a recent infusion of $24.4 million in financing to build showrooms where shoppers can try on the frocks and consult with stylists. The popular online destination reportedly has Chicago next on its agenda.

Thanks to the recession — and online retail — brick-and-mortar retailers are re-thinking their real estate concepts

Now, as the recession finally begins to lift, brick-and-mortar retailers are studying their real estate concepts and pondering what comes next.

Some will pare store counts, partially in response to online competition. Some will cut store square footage. Others are expanding store numbers and square footage. Some are expanding fulfillment center square footage. Some are not changing. Careful about that.

What are you doing? Is it what you should be doing?

At Retail Live!, retailers exhibit, and developers, owners, brokers and others stop by to chat

In the retail real estate landscape, there aren't as many networking options as one might think. Even fewer if you narrow it down to those events that put landlords and tenants in the same room, along with entertainment, face-to-face meet and greets, and mutually beneficial educational sessions.

Bucksbaum Retail Properties opened for business in April 2012. The Chicago-based company has already opened one project and is working on four more.

The 53,000-sq.-ft. Kingsbury Center near North Chicago has opened with four tenants: Buy Buy Baby, PetSmart, Road Runner Sports and Jimmy Johns. It is a joint venture with Chicago-based Structured Development.

Irvine Co.'s The Market Place is too big for one city. It sprawls across two. Split in two by Jamboree Road, the southern half of the 120-store, 165-acre center resides in Irvine, Calif. The northern half is in Tustin.

The huge regional destination center combines open-air lifestyle retail with big-box retail. Nationally known value- and quality-driven store names offer apparel, books, electronics, fitness, groceries, home furnishings and decor, movie theaters, restaurants, various services, sporting goods, toys, and on and on.

John Bucksbaum discusses post-recession realities

Bucksbaum Retail Properties opened for business in April 2012. The Chicago-based company has already opened one project and is working on four more.

The 53,000-sq.-ft. Kingsbury Center near North Chicago has opened with four tenants: Buy Buy Baby, PetSmart, Road Runner Sports and Jimmy Johns. It is a joint venture with Chicago-based Structured Development.