Real Estate

Supervalu has found a buyer for its discount grocery business, Save-A-Lot.   Supervalu agreed to sell Save-A-Lot to Onex Corporation, a Toronto-based private equity firm, for $1.365 billion in cash. As part of the agreement, Supervalu will provide professional services to Save-A-Lot for five years.     The sale is expected to be completed by January 31, 2017, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.    

Rubinstein Real Estate Company has sold the Blackhawk Village shopping center in Cedar Falls, Iowa, for $3.4 million to a private investor. Mid-America Real Estate brokered the sale.   The 65,548-sq.-ft. center includes Chuck E. Cheese’s, Famous Footwear, Key West Fitness, and Dollar Tree.   Cedar Falls, a city of about 40,000 people, is the home of the University of Northern Iowa and is situated in Black Hawk County.

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The great outdoors arrived on Fifth Avenue today. At least that’s what North Face is shooting for with its new global flagship store in the old Manufacturers Trust Company building, a New York City landmark of modernist architecture.   Though the canyons outside the expansive windows on the second floor of store are formed by skyscrapers and not rock bluffs, North Face’s VP of direct-to-consumer retail Erik Searles finds the airy atmosphere a fitting backdrop for the high-end camping and climbing gear being merchandised there.

The great outdoors has come to Fifth Avenue — courtesy of The North Face.   The retailer, a division of VF Corp., is opening a two-level, 20,000-sq.-ft. flagship in the old Manufacturers Trust Company building, a New York City landmark of modernist architecture. (The official opening date is Oct. 26.)  

Warby Parker goes back to the future — design-wise at its new store in Seattle.   The design recalls the classic library-inspired aesthetic of the brand’s first-ever store in downtown Manhattan, and is outfitted with light oak shelving, spacious marble tabletops and brass detailing.   It also features exposed metal ceiling beams, concrete flooring and skylights.   

Thinking about setting up shop between 49th and 60th Streets on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue? Better be prepared to pay big bucks.   The upper part of Fifth Avenue is the most expensive retail street in the world (based on rental value), with rents rising to a whopping $3,500 per square foot in 2015, according to the 27th edition of Cushman & Wakefield’s report, Main Streets Across The World.  

Apple has re-opened its 12-year-old London flagship after a major overhaul that reflects the company’s updated store strategy.     Located on Regent Street, the redone space has an airy look and natural feel, with an open glass façade, high ceilings, oversized windows and plenty of room to move around. The increased ceiling height allowed for the addition of twelve Ficus Ali trees, complete with planters that double as a comfortable place to sit. Two “living” walls are covered with greenery.

Driving your car on the beach and the Daytona International Speedway. Those are the things that have long defined Daytona Beach. Those and the legendary Bill France, Sr.