Department Store

New York City - The Association for Retail Environments (A.R.E.) announced that its Retail Design Collective will be held Dec. 8-10, at 7 W New York, 7 W. 34th St. and at other major showrooms throughout New York City.

Conference sessions focus on visual merchandising and store design trends, and will feature retailers such as Harry Cunningham of Saks Fifth Avenue, Brad Lenz of Liz Claiborne, Diana Bernal of Van Cleef  Arpels Inc., Paul Olszewski of Macy's, Tom Davidson of The Food Emporium, and Lauren Shaw of Louis Vuitton North America.

New York - Barnes & Noble Inc. reported Tuesday that it narrowed its loss to $12.6 million in its fiscal second quarter, compared with a loss of $24 million in the year-ago period. Results missed Wall Street expectations, and the book seller has issued a weak outlook for the third quarter and the full year.

Revenue surged 64% to $1.91 billion, attributed to the company’s acquisition of its college book unit. Without the acquisition, sales rose 1%.

Same-store sales fell 3.3%.

New York City - West Hampstead, N.Y.-based construction firm Corcon and J.A. Stowell Construction, Inc. of California said Tuesday they have completed UGG Australia’s Madison Avenue flagship store in New York City.

The 4,613-sq.-ft. store was completed on October 28. J.A. Stowell Construction was the construction manager and owner representative for UGG Australia, Corcon served as general contractor, and Anthony Donnelly of VisualWorks, U.K. designed the new location.

New York - The holiday shopping season got off to a positive if unspectacular start, according to preliminary results from the Black Friday weekend.  The number of people who shopped at stores and online between Thursday and Sunday was up 8.7% to 212 million shoppers, according to a National Retail Federation survey of 4,306 shoppers conducted by BIGresearch. The total amount spent during the four-day weekend reached an estimated $45 billion, with the average spending rising 6.4% to $365.34, the survey showed.

Gainesville, Ga. - Addison, Texas-based Coyote Management, L.P. announced that Debora M. Overholt has been named general manager for Lakeshore Mall, in Gainesville, Ga.

Lakeshore Mall, opened in 1969, and is a single-level, 517,153-sq.-ft. enclosed regional mall anchored by J.C. Penney, Sears and Belk.

New York - Visits to the top 500 retail sites increased 13% on Black Friday, according to data from Experian Hitwise. For the sixth year in a row, Amazon was the top retail site receiving traffic on Black Friday. Walmart was the second most visited retail site, followed by Target. But Target’s visits increased 13% on versus 2009, representing the biggest increase among the top five sites. The top 20 retail sites accounted for 61% of all visits among the top 500 retail sites.

North Miami Beach, Fla. - Boca Raton, Fla.-based Woolbright Development announced two new tenants for Intracoastal Mall, a 234,000-sq.-ft. shopping center in North Miami Beach.

Hiro’s Yakko-San will open a 4,438-sq.-ft. Japanese restaurant in December 2010. And Dollar Tree has leased 10,200 sq. ft. and is slated to open a new store in early 2011.

Intracoastal Mall is anchored by TJ Maxx, Old Navy, Winn Dixie and Sunrise Cinemas.