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A food hall-cum-retail bazaar called Canal Street Market is set to open at the northern edge of Chinatown in downtown Manhattan, just south of SoHo and Tribeca.   Developer Philip Chong is claiming the site will be the first combined food and retail experience in this section of New York. A food hall will feature about a dozen options, including Yori Nori, a new concept from the owners of Korila and Mokbar, plus Davey’s Ice Cream and Boba Guy.  

A “Rally at the Rack” party is planned for Oct. 6 in downtown New Orleans for the opening of Nordstrom Rack’s store at The Outlet Collection at Riverwalk.   Nordstrom Rack will anchor the south side of the center, which owner Howard Hughes Corporation bills as the nation’s first downtown outlet location. Among the 75-or-so retail brands already doing business there are Guess Factory Store, Kay Jewelers Outlet, Neiman Marcus Last Call Studio, Reebok Outlet Store, and Wilson’s Leather.  

Photo: George Fox   Divaris Real Estate has named George Fox VP of sales and leasing at its Virginia Beach office. He will represent both landlords and tenants in North Carolina and Virginia, with a primary focus on the Hampton Roads market.  

Springfield, Illinois-based Jared Commercial has acquired the Chippewa Center in St. Louis from an investment partnership controlled by Pace Properties. The purchase price was $10.6 million.   The 147,920-sq.-ft. center is located in the densely populated Shrewsbury neighborhood of St. Louis. Chief tenants are Shop ‘n Save, Value City Furniture, and Dollar Tree.   The deal was brokered for Jared Commercial by Mid-America Real Estate.

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Magnolia Bakery, the Greenwich Village shop that ignited the cupcake craze with its appearance on "Sex in the City," opens this week at Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Central Valley, New York.   This is the first storefront for Magnolia on the East Coast, aside from its original location. It maintains shops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Honolulu, Japan, Korea, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates.  

Mid-America Real Estate Corp. announced it had brokered the sale of the Macomb Mall Shops in Roseville, Michigan, for $3.6 million.   Lormax Stern Development Company of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, was the seller. The purchaser was an unnamed private developer.   The 8,074-sq.-ft. center, located at the northwest corner of Gratiot Avenue and Masonic Boulevard in Roseville, houses AT&T, Chipotle, and Potbelly’s.

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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.  

Petco has named William Engen senior VP of retail market expansion, a newly created role dedicated to optimizing the company’s investments in store growth.    Engen, who joins Petco from Wingstop Restaurants, where he served as COO, will be in charge of real estate, construction, and store design. He previously served in senior operations roles at 7-Eleven and Circuit City.