Costco Wholesale Corp.

Target Corp. has knocked Walmart off its perennial top spot in an annual ranking of the U.S. companies with the most solar energy capacity.      Target now has 147.5 megawatts (MW) of installed solar capacity, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association’s 2016 Solar Means Business report, which ranks companies based on capacity current through the third quarter of this year.     

Once the mecca of “Valley Girls” lured by white marble interiors and retailers like Saks and I. Magnin, the Promenade Mall in Warner Center north of Los Angeles will be razed and replaced by a $1.5 billion mixed-use development.   Westfield, owner of the 43-year-old, 550,000-sq.-ft. mall, has announced a re-imagination of the site in line with the Los Angeles City Council’s Warner Center 2035 plan to urbanize the area.  

The University of Washington is teaming up with Costco, UPS, Nordstrom and other stakeholders on a new project that aims to improve the way consumers receive their goods.

The SCTL Center Urban Freight Lab says it will be working to improve the management of both public and private operations of urban goods delivery systems. Urban Freight Lab members plan to engage in strategic applied research projects at the SCTL Center, and help identify priority problems for future research.

Founding members of the SCTL Center Urban Freight Lab include:

L Brands, operator of Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works, posted a better-than-expected 3% increase in same-store sales for September.      The retailer’s results were fueled by a 9% increase in comp sales at its Bath & Body Works brand. L Brands’ net sales rose 6% to $919.9 million in September.   The handful of other retailers who still report same-store sales did not fare so well.  

New shopping center construction may be in a nationwide lull, but not in Tarrant County, Texas, where a developer is poised to break ground on a 90-acre parcel flanked by two other sizeable centers.   A partnership controlled by the De La Vega Group will begin building a mixed-use project called The Citadel across Interstate 35 from Alliance Town Center and adjoining the newly opened Presidio Town Center north of Fort Worth. Upon its completion, retail space will top 2 million sq. ft. in the submarket.  

Costco Wholesale Corp. reported a higher-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter.     In related news, shoppers opened 730,000 new credit card accounts since the Visa cards went live in June, Costco executives said on a conference call with analysts. (In June, Costco ended its longstanding relationship with American Express and switched to Visa.)    Net income rose to $779 million, or $1.77 per share, in the fourth quarter ended Aug. 28, from $767 million, or $1.73 per share, a year earlier.

JLL has been selected to manage retail leasing for Woodmore Towne Center in Glenarden, Maryland, which is being expanded into a 245-acre mixed-use development.   Under construction at the location east of Washington D.C. off the Capital Beltway are 1,100 residential units, two hotels, and a million sq. ft. of office space. Expansion of the retail space, which has drawn Nordstrom Rack to the center, will bring it to a total of 800,000 sq. ft.  

The new Hamilton Crossings shopping center in Lower Macungie Township, Pennsylvania, will benefit from an innovative new traffic control system that manages signal timing based on continuously monitored traffic volumes.   The system allows traffic approaching the center from a major artery to the mall “largely unstopped” by lights, township engineer Alan Fornwalt told Allentown’s Morning Call.