Home Depot

Chicago -- SMS Assist announced it has appointed Geoffrey Wigner as executive VP of facilities for the Chicago-based technology-driven facilities maintenance and management company.
 

Atlanta – The Home Depot, Inc. reportedly expanding the national rollout of Redbeacon, its online handyman referral service. According to Bloomberg, Home Depot is making Redbeacon, which connects customers online to home repair professionals, in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Montana, and Alaska.

Home Depot now offers Redbeacon in 11 states and plans to roll out the service in additional states during the next two years. The retailer acquired Redbeacon, which was founded by three former Home Depot employees, in 2012.

Boston — The Wilder Companies has been awarded five new leasing and management contracts for nearly 900,000 sq. ft. in five shopping centers on the north and south shores of Boston.

The Crossing at Walkers Brook in Reading, Mass., is a 480,000-sq.-ft. center featuring Jordan’s Furniture, an IMAX Theatre and The Home Depot. An 80,000-sq.-ft. pedestrian-friendly lifestyle portion of the center features Staples, Golfsmith, the Paper Store, Macaroni Grill, Chili’s, and Starbucks.

Atlanta -- The Home Depot has appointed CVS executive VP and chief healthcare strategy and marketing officer Helena Foulkes to its board of directors.

Foulkes, 49 will be a member of the Finance and Leadership Development & Compensation Committees.

Burlington, Mass. — Torchlight Investors has sold the property at 476 Boston Turnpike. KeyPoint Partners represented Torchlight in the transaction.

B-W Warrenville Operations bought the property, a former Borders Books store, prominently located in a retail-intensive section of Route 9 near Stop & Shop, Home Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond, Bob’s Stores and Staples.

The new owner plans to redevelop the site for Buffalo Wild Wings and Tile Shop.

Atlanta – The Home Depot, Inc. is reportedly going to stop providing health care benefits to part-time employees working less than 30 hours per week. According to Bloomberg, starting next month the retailer will send about 20,000 part-time employees to purchase their own insurance on government-sponsored healthcare exchanges that will be created under the guidelines of the Affordable Care Act.

Atlanta – The Home Depot, Inc. is reportedly being sued in California Superior Court for unfair, arbitrary attempts to collect damages from customers accused of shoplifting.

According to Bloomberg, a California man filed a class action suit against Home Depot on Sept. 5 after receiving two letters from the retailer’s law firm threatening criminal prosecution if he did not pay hundreds of dollars in damages for taking work gloves worth about $8, which he says he did not steal.

ECRM compared retail circular advertising in August 2012 versus August 2013 and noted trends occurring across top retail chains. A home improvement promotional arms race between Home Depot and Lowe’s appears to be taking place: Lowe’s saw year-over-year increases of 100%, 75% and 184.4% across circular page count, ad block per page count and ad block per circular count, respectively. Despite these large gains, Lowe’s still appears to be playing catch-up to Home Depot, which continued to run more ad blocks per page and per circular than Lowe’s.