Real Estate

Plano, Texas - Rent-A-Center Inc. has sold 14 rent-to-own stores located in Alberta and Ontario, Canada to Canadian merchandise leasing company Easyhome Ltd. The transaction included Rent-a-Center concurrently purchasing three Easyhome rent-to-own stores located in Florida, Missouri and New York.

Boston – A three-level CityTarget store is a main feature of a new $315 million mixed-use development on Boylston Street in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston. The Samuels & Associates development also includes a 172-unit luxury apartment building and adjoining 11-story office tower.

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Austin, Texas – Whole Foods Market has received approval for the design of a planned 40,000-sq.-ft. store from the Planning and Design Review Board of the City of Miami Beach. The design features a well-proportioned grid of white concrete, establishing a pedestrian loggia at the ground level, and a floating garden above that screens the parking.  

Doha, Qatar – The world’s largest mall is coming soon. The Mall of Qatar, which will encompass almost 4.2 million-sq.-ft. with 400 shops, a luxury hotel, a family entertainment center, a five-star restaurant and 82 other eating establishments, is slated to open in first quarter 2016.

Cincinnati -- The highly publicized mixed-use project Liberty Center, in Cincinnati, Ohio, has just announced its first slate of retail tenants.  

With a scheduled October 2015 opening, Liberty Center includes more than 800,000 sq. ft. of retail, restaurants and entertainment, including a 200,000-sq.-ft. Dillard’s anchor that will be the state of Ohio’s first ground-up Dillard’s store.

Indianapolis -- Fresh Thyme Farmers Market may have only been in business in three years, but it is thinking big.

With some16 stores in the Midwest, the value-priced, organic specialty grocer is scheduled to open 60 stores by 2019. It will open two new location in the Indianapolis area on Aug. 6.

Phoenix -- Jeff Green, president of Jeff Green Partners, and Jerry Hoffman, president of Hoffman Strategy Group, have announced a formal collaboration to expand their companies’ work on complex, mixed-use feasibility research including retail, residential, office and hotel uses.

The private equity firms that paid a premium to take Michaels private nearly a decade ago continue to gradually unwind their majority position in the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailer.