Tenant Update

Retail tenants are not only reporting a strong performance for  the year so far, but are also optimistic about the next six months.  

Photo: Sara Martin and Dave Cheatham   X Team International has announced the appointment of Velocity Retail Group’s Dave Cheatham and Welsh Companies’ Sara Martin to its board of directors. Board members are elected by the retail advisory alliance’s 35 partner offices.  

WP Glimcher announced that CEO and vice chairman Michael Glimcher has resigned from the REIT founded by his father, Herbert. Board member Louis Conforti was named interim CEO at the company slated to be rebranded as the Washington Prime Group.   Several other senior leadership changes were announced, including the replacement of Mark Ordan as board chairman with Robert J. Laikin, who had been the board’s lead independent director. Ordan stays on as a director.  

Brookstone has retained New York-based RCS Real Estate Advisors to operate as the retailer’s outsourced real estate department.    Brookstone operates 218 stores across the United States and Puerto Rico in shopping malls, airports and other locations.   

Retail real estate leaders and analysts discuss the retail landscape, trends in the industry, and projects to keep an eye on.

Watch the videos here.  
 

Stirling Properties and CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. are announcing several changes to Ambassador Town Center in Lafayette, Louisiana.
 
Half Shell Oyster House will occupy 5,850-sq.-ft. of restaurant space, and is the newest addition to the eatery line-up. This will mark the ninth location for the seafood restaurant, and the first in Louisiana. Half Shell Oyster House is expected to open in November 2016.
 
Newly leased, Just 4 Him Men’s Haircut Lounge will occupy 1,267-sq.-ft. and is expected to open in September 2016.

Houston-based Baker Katz has redeveloped and fully leased a retail site in Beaumont, Texas.
 
Baker Katz principal Kenneth Katz made the announcement.
 
Baker Katz completely redeveloped the site, beginning with demolishing the previous building with an end plan to create five new spaces for retail tenants. Starbucks, Mattress One and Wingstop will occupy the 6,100-sq.-ft. building. T-Mobile and Access Dental will each have 2,800-sq.-ft. in the second building. There is a new H-E-B located immediately east of the property.
 

Photo by Ola Wilk/Wilk Marketing Communications

Liebeskind Berlin, a trendy leather accessories and fashion brand from Germany, has opened a second location in the United States.  

Saks Fifth Avenue plans to shutter its 107,000-sq.-ft. store at The Mall at Short Hills, in Short Hills, New Jersey, amid plans to open a flagship in a huge retail and entertainment center in the state.
     
As previously announced, the upscale retailer plans to open a store at the under-construction, three-million-sq.-ft. American Dream Meadowlands mega-center, in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Over the last 12 annual trips I’ve made to Las Vegas for ICSC’s RECon real estate convention (which officially makes me a rookie in this industry of 20-, 30- and 40+-year veterans), I have always been able to detect some distinct trends.  

That doesn’t as much make me a trend-watcher as it does a good listener.  The retailers and shopping center operators and brokers who attend RECon each year tend to talk avidly in the aisles about the current events shaping the retail real estate industry.