Real Estate

LAKELAND, Fla. — Retired Publix president and director emeritus Mark C. Hollis has passed away at that age of 78.

Mississsauga, Ontario -- Walmart Canada on Friday opened its 200th supercenter, in Edmonton, Alberta. Today's grand opening marks a major milestone for Walmart Canada. The company opened its first supercentres in Ontario in 2006. Today, Walmart Canada has supercentres in six provinces and 373 stores nationwide serving more than eight million customers each week.

Miami Beach, Fla. -- Terranova Corp. has signed a lease with Gap, providing a temporary store for the retailer while it builds its new multi-story location on Lincoln Road in Miami.

Gap will open a new location just off Lincoln Road at 1669 Meridian Ave., two blocks away from Gap’s current location at 1001 Lincoln. The existing Gap will close by early 2013, when Gap will begin redeveloping the building into a two-level, 20,000-sq. ft. flagship store. During construction, Gap will stay open for business at the Meridian Avenue location.

Starbucks blends tradition with innovation, transforming the vault of the historic Amsterdamsche Bank, a landmark building in Rembrandt Square, into its largest store in Europe. The chain’s first “concept” store in Europe, it spans 4,500 sq. ft. and was conceived as a theatre space with a 57-foot coffee bar as its stage, with multi-level areas that provide stages for local bands, poetry readings and other cultural activities. The store will function as a test space for rare and exclusive coffees, diverse coffee brewing methods, and new food concepts.

New York -- Canada’s Loblaw Cos. Ltd. plans to spin off the vast majority of its property assets into a real estate investment trust. The retailer said it plans to spin off real estate worth more than C$7 billion ($7.05 billion) into the REIT and sell units of the trust through an initial public offering that it hopes to complete by mid-2013.

Williamsville, N.Y. -- Tops Friendly Markets, a full-service grocery retailer in upstate New York, northern Pennsylvania and western Vermont, today announced that the company has entered into an agreement with the Farrugia family to acquire three Big M supermarkets located in Elbridge, N.Y., Mexico, N.Y., and Jordan, N.Y.

This marks the third acquisition deal this year for Tops and will expand Tops' footprint further into areas of northern and central New York State.

New York -- British billionaire Sir Philip Green, the owner of the Arcadia retail group, sold a 25% stake in his fast-fashion Topshop and Topman retail chains to Los Angeles-based Leonard Green & Partners for about $805 million. Arcadia’s other retail divisions include Miss Selfridges, Bhs, and Dorothy Parker.

Burlington, Mass. -- Demandware announced Ethan Allen Interiors will leverage the Demandware Commerce platform as the digital foundation of its global expansion strategy.

Ethan Allen recently launched its first site on the Demandware platform in Canada to coincide with the grand opening of its first Design Center in Montreal. Ethan Allen plans to re-launch its U.S. e-commerce site with Demandware in 2013 in addition to site launches in other countries, including Europe, to support its new design center in Brussels.

New York -- Starbucks Coffee Co. is moving ahead full-steam. The company on Wednesday announced accelerated global growth plans that include opening at least 1,500 stores in the United States during the next five years. Including Canada and South America in the mix, Starbucks expects to add a total of 3,000 new locations in its Americas region — and renovate thousands more — by 2017.

Claire’s Stores has opened its first two stores in China, giving the leading retailer of jewelry and accessories a worldwide presence in 39 countries with nearly 3,500 locations.

The company said it opened stores in the DaNing Life Hub and Grand Gateway Mall in Shanghai and indicated that China represents a significant market opportunity for the Claire's brand.