Department Store

New York -- Foot Locker has received approval from the Federal Cartel Office in Germany to complete its acquisition of Runners Point Warenhandelsgesellschaft mbH (RPG), initially announced in May 2013. RPG is majority owned by private equity group Hannover Finanz and operates more than 200 specialty athletic retail stores in Germany, Austria, The Netherlands and Switzerland under various banners, as well as an e-commerce site.

The transaction, valued at roughly $94 million, is expected to close early next month.

Long Beach, Calif. -- Nordstrom announced plans to close its Long Beach City Place Nordstrom Rack store in Long Beach, Calif. Originally opened in August 2002, the 33,000-sq.-ft. store will close to the public in late January 2014.

The company will continue to serve customers at three nearby Nordstrom Rack locations in Lakewood, South Bay and Edinger.

Dallas -- Cypress Equities Real Estate Investment Management has announced the acquisition of Lloyd Center in Portland, Ore. The enclosed, three-level 1,478,000-sq.-ft. regional shopping center is located near downtown close to the Convention Center, Rose Garden Arena and Memorial Coliseum.

NEW YORK — Cosmetic brand Clinique has promoted Jean-Christophe Jourde to the newly created position of SVP and GM of North America. Jourde will be responsible for driving sales and market share growth for the brand in the region and will report to Ricardo Quintero, SVP and global GM of market development. 

Cincinnati -- Retail loyalty programs have seen some impressive growth since 2011, according to results of the latest Colloquy Loyalty Census. In 2013, department stores achieved 70% growth in loyalty program memberships since the 2011 Colloquy Census, far surpassing the 26.7% rate of growth in loyalty programs across all sectors tabulated in the 2013 census. The number of department store loyalty memberships is 193.9 million.

New York -- Sixty-percent of retailers have energy management systems within their site portfolios, but only 46% have a formal energy management strategy in place.
 
Those are among the findings of a survey conducted by Ecova, a total energy and sustainability management company. In other survey findings, 44% of the respondents said they currently benchmark their portfolio or sites, and 21% have applied for the Energy Star label for their portfolio.

Houston -- United Commercial Realty Houston has announced three new leases for Houston-area centers:

• Goody Goody Liquor will open a third Houston-area location at Copperfield Village Shopping Center this fall.

• Pink’s Pizza has signed a deal for its fifth area location at the Cougar Den Plaza adjacent to the University of Houston’s central campus.

• Affinity Veterinary will open a clinic at a center located at 19450 Katy Freeway in Houston.

MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. — Kohl’s plans to open a new customer service operations center in Dallas in late spring 2014. The two-building, three-story, 240,000-sq.-ft. facility will support the company’s growing Kohl’s Charge program as well as Kohls.com.

The company's e-commerce site reached $1.4 billion in sales last year following three consecutive years of more than 40% annual growth.