Retail

Tallahassee, Fla. -- Jacksonville, Fla.-based Regency Centers has announced the completion of two new anchor leases and the renovation of Carriage Gate, a 78,583-sq.-ft. neighborhood center, located in Tallahassee, Fla.

New York -- BFC Partners, a New York real estate development company, announced plans to develop a new retail complex and hotel, with the working name of Harbor Commons, on a site adjacent to the Richmond County Bank Ballpark in St. George, Staten Island, N.Y.
 
Harbor Commons will be an approximately 350,000-sq.-ft. retail complex along with a 120,000-sq.-ft. hotel, totaling 470,000 sq. ft. The retail complex will be comprised of approximately 100 designer outlets along with a variety of restaurants and cafes.
 

Suffern, N.Y. -- Ascena Retail Group Inc. said Thursday it is planning a $34 million expansion that will add new equipment, systems and about 40,000 sq. ft. of space to its Greencastle, Ind., distribution facility.

The apparel retailer said that the objective is to turn its Greencastle facility into a primary e-commerce distribution site. The facility is located about 40 miles west of Indianapolis and was part of Ascena’s acquisition of Charming Shoppes Inc.

The outlook for Christmas spending is decent and Halloween is supposed to be pretty good too.

Menomonee Falls, Wis. -- Kohl’s Department Stores announced the grand opening of 12 stores, creating approximately 1,500 jobs nationwide. The company now operates 1,146 stores in 49 states.

The company is celebrating the grand opening of 12 stores in 10 states, including Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington. Of the 12 new locations, 11 are small format stores with approximately 64,000 sq. ft. or less of retail space.

New York -- A U.S. judge in San Francisco has certified a class-action lawsuit against Costco Wholesale Corp. that involved allegations of gender discrimination in the store's promotion practices.

“Costco offers numerous competing explanations for the observed gender disparity in promotions,” U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said in the ruling, Bloomberg reported. “None of these explanations undermine the companywide nature of the challenged policies and their disparate effects.”

WASHINGTON — The National Retail Federation estimates that U.S. retailers and their customers are benefiting from savings of up to $18 million every day since the implementation of the debit card swipe fee reform.

By Sean Jackson, [email protected]

In recent weeks, there have been some well-publicised examples of retail giants whose financial performance has been severely impacted by breakdowns in the supply chain. As salt in the wound to these behemoths of retail, there are just as many examples of organizations that have exceeded market expectations due to an ability to behave nimbly and respond quickly to changes in consumer demand.