Department Store

For millennial shoppers, Victoria’s Secret is tops, followed by Sephora and Nike.   That’s according to a report from Conde Nast Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which surveyed the popularity of brands among millennial shoppers, reported Bloomberg.   

West Elm is expanding in Texas.   The retailer, a division of William-Sonoma, will open its first Fort Worth location this summer. The 10,502-sq.-ft. store will be located at West 7th Fort Worth, an open-air center in the heart of the ‘Cultural District” in Fort Worth, Texas.    The West 7th development encompasses nearly five blocks of pedestrian-friendly urban elements. It is managed by Vestar.  

Flying Tiger Copenhagen is expanding its U.S. footprint.   The discounter will open a 2,100-sq.-ft. store at City Point, in downtown Brooklyn, on April 21. The Danish home retailer offers a quirky, ever-changing assortment of  product, ranging from home goods to toys to electronics and more, with many created by the company’s in-house design team in Denmark.  

Sand Lake Corners North, a 151,487-sq.-ft. community center in Orlando, Florida, has been put up for sale. Transwestern is serving as broker for the property at 8115 – 8379 S. John Young Parkway.   According to Transwestern, tenants with long-term leases fill more than 90% of the center, which is located in Orlando’s tourist corridor and is surrounded by corporate campuses, including the SouthPark Center that comprises 2.9 million sq. ft. of office space.  

Mass retail is at a crossroads. Many of the iconic brands that are mainstays for our biggest and best malls are announcing layoffs and closures. The traditional brick-and-mortar store continues to see reduced foot traffic and most can’t seem to find a remedy. Amid this retail doom and gloom, however, there is one retailer that is rising above the rest: Ulta Beauty.  

Inland Real Estate, the Oak Brook, Illinois, acquisition machine headed by Joe Cosenza, has purchased another center to keep the acquisition tote board on its website churning past $44 billion.   Its latest purchase is the 199,335-sq.-ft. Pentucket Shopping Center in Plaistow, New Hampshire, 40 miles north of Boston. The center houses Home Depot, Staples, and Bed Bath & Beyond and is shadow-anchored by a Super Walmart.  

Walmart continues its online buying spree, but this time the target is a Web domain.   ShoeBuy.com, which Walmart acquired in January, has acquired the shoes.com domain name and related intellectual property for $9 million, according to documents filed with the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Bankruptcy and Insolvency. In an unexpected move, the Canada-based Shoes.com shut down its online sites and brick-and-mortar operations in January.   

The Harris Poll has released its 29th annual study of America’s top brands, and Kohl’s is one of the retail brands on top.   Kohl’s earned the top position in the department store category of the poll, in which more than 100,000 U.S. consumers assessed more than 4,000 brands across more than 450 categories.    Other retailers named as Brands of the Year included:     Luxury department store: Nordstrom  Off-price: TJ Maxx