Department Store

Bucksbaum Retail Properties opened for business in April 2012. The Chicago-based company has already opened one project and is working on four more.

The 53,000-sq.-ft. Kingsbury Center near North Chicago has opened with four tenants: Buy Buy Baby, PetSmart, Road Runner Sports and Jimmy Johns. It is a joint venture with Chicago-based Structured Development.

I visited my first Von Maur store in 1999, a decade after I relocated from southern boomtown Atlanta to Lincoln, Neb., a sleepy college town that only really wakes up on Husker football Saturdays. Today I am back home in Baton Rouge, La., still no bustling metropolis, but the food and football trump.

Editor's Note: Chain Store Age's 24th annual survey of Fastest-Growing Managers measures new domestic and international third-party management and leasing contracts obtained during the preceding calendar year (2012).

Last year's numbers were such that we couldn't limit our annual Fastest-Growing third-party managers listing to a top five; a sixth was added because the contract totals were that close.

The Glimcher Realty Trust pipeline is filled with open-air centers. "We're seeing a lot of opportunity in the market and even our own portfolio with open-air right now," said Michael P. Glimcher, chairman and CEO, Columbus, Ohio-based Glimcher.

Over the last three years, Glimcher has acquired five properties. Four were open-air. Today, open-air centers account for about 20% of the company's 29 properties.

Recently, Glimcher shared his insights about open-air and enclosed centers with Chain Store Age contributing writer Michael Fickes.

Invest in the right experience for a shopping center's customers, and you will earn a return on experience. That is the business model driving Fort Worth, Texas-based Trademark Property Co., which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

"Do customers love being at the center? Do they come back and drive sales? That is return on experience," said Terry Montesi, Trademark chairman, CEO and founder. Experience is indispensable today when most goods and services are available online, often at a lower price.

When The Mall at Bay Plaza opens to the public in 2014, adjacent to the highly successful outdoor Bay Plaza Shopping Center, it will be heralded as the first enclosed fashion mall in the New York City area in nearly 40 years.

That’s big news. Particularly at a time when new development has taken a back seat to redevelopment of existing assets.

El Paso, Texas -- Dallas-based Venture Commercial Real Estate said it has negotiated leases for two retailers entering or expanding in the El Paso, Texas, market.
 
Rue21 has opened a 5,000-sq.-ft. store at El Paseo Marketplace, its fourth location in El Paso.

Jared, The Galleria of Jewelry has signed a lease to open its first El Paso location in a 6,057-sq.-ft. store at The Fountains at Farah, a 600,000-sq.-ft. power lifestyle center currently under construction and opening fall 2013.   

Jacksonville, Fla. -- Stein Mart reported Monday that it has restated its 2011 periods and first quarter 2012 results, released its full-year 2012 financial numbers, and said it will unveil several key initiatives in 2013.

For the fourth quarter, net income was $13.5 million, compared to $5.9 million last year. Sales surged 11.4% to $368.6 million from $331 million, and same-store sales increased 6% in the quarter.