Consumer Electronics

Houston -- Grubb & Ellis Co. said Wednesday that it represented Gulf Coast Commercial Group in the sale of Westheimer Crossing Shopping Center, a 94,053-sq.-ft. retail center in Houston.

Delta Troy Interests Ltd. purchased the property for an undisclosed price.  The property was approximately 90% occupied at the time of sale to multiple tenants, including DSW, REI and Michaels Stores.

Chicago -- Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based Mid-America Asset Management said that Charming Charlie will open an 8,650-sq.-ft. store at Geneva Commons, in Geneva, Ill., a western suburb of Chicago.

The new store is slated to open summer 2011 in the 437,650-sq.-ft. lifestyle center, joining a recently opened Sephora, which debuted a 3,909-sq.-ft. store in the center.

Geneva Commons is anchored by Dick’s Sporting Goods, Barnes & Noble, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, H & M, Anthropologie and more.
 

This sounds like a pretty cool deal. Walmart’s wholly-owned video-on-demand subsidiary Vudu and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in an exclusive arrangement this week offered a new type of digital move card for the science fiction film, Battle: Los Angeles.

The cards cost $14.96 and went on sale the same day as the Blu-ray and DVDs. The big difference between buying the physical Blu-ray disc or DVD is customers who purchase the card simply enter a code to access the film directly from a computer or more than 300 different Vudu-enabled consumer electronics devices.

Tomball, Texas -- Houston-based commercial real estate brokerage Baker Katz said it has acquired the Four Corners Shopping Center in Tomball, Texas.

Baker Katz purchased the 120,000-sq.-ft. center through an investment fund dedicated to real estate development, acquisition and ownership. The center holds the last remaining big-box vacancy in Tomball, a 45,000-sq.-ft. former Kroger space. Baker Katz plans to begin a major renovation on the center later this year and will look to re-lease the space.

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. — Children's interest are constantly changing, but right now Justin Bieber is tops with kids. According to a May NPD Group survey, when asked what they thought the kids they know would identify as the hottest new thing these days, 10% of participants said Justin Bieber. 

Though Bieber topped the list in May, he garnered a higher percentage (14%) when the survey was first conducted in February, indicating that interest in the pop singer could be waning. 

Dallas -- Neiman Marcus has named former Williams-Sonoma executive John E. Koryl as president of its website and catalog division, Neiman Marcus Direct.

Koryl, 40, succeeds Gerald Barnes, who will become executive VP and chief merchant of Neiman Marcus Direct, which operates websites under NeimanMarcus.com, BergdorfGoodman.com, LastCall.com, Cusp.com and Horchow.com. The division also produces more than 80 catalogs annually for the Neiman Marcus and Horchow brands.

LAS VEGAS — Pacific Entertainment, creators of the Baby Genius brand of musical edu-tainment for infants and toddlers, announced that Alfred Kahn will join the company as an exclusive consultant in the children's preschool and education markets. 

New York City -- Ron Johnson’s decision to leave Apple, where he serves as senior VP of retail, to take the reins of J.C. Penney Co. leaves the tech giant without a retail chief as it begins to ramp up its international expansion.

Apple plans to open 40 stores this fiscal year, with almost three-quarters of them outside the United States, the company announced in April. A big growth area is Asia.
Apple has said very little with regards to its plans to replace Johnson.