Department Store

While the annual South By Southwest festival was underway in Austin, regional department store operator Belk was connecting with its core customers in the southeast by hosting a festival of its own.

Macy's has added an expert in real estate investments its board as the department store retailer remains under pressure from an activist investor to spin off some of its real estate into a real estate investment trust.

Urban Outfitters is going against the smaller-is-better footprint trend and experimenting with larger-sized stores for its Anthropologie brand.

The retailer is testing four “ultimate experience” Anthropologie stores, ranging in size from 20,000 sq. ft. to 30,000 sq. ft., Women’s Wear Daily reported.

Photo: Arthur Valdez

Modell’s Sporting Goods continues to grow its brick-and-mortar footprint. The New York-based company has added two more stores to its portfolio, one in Boston and the other in Philadelphia. Both stores are in prime locations formerly occupied by City Sports. (City Sports filed for bankruptcy in October 2016, and subsequently announced it would close all locations.)

In Boston, Modell’s opened an 11,000-sq.-ft. store on Boylston Street, in the city’s Back Bay area. It’s the retailer’s first outpost in downtown Boston.

Tommy Hilfiger will be inducted into the World Retail Hall of Fame at the 10th Annual World Retail Congress, to be held at the Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai on April 12-14.

Hilfiger introduced his signature collection in 1985. Since then, the business has grown from a single menswear collection to a global lifestyle brand achieving over $6.7 billion in retail sales in 2014. There are over 1,400 Tommy Hilfiger stores in over 115 countries.

The grand lady of Los Angeles retailing is getting a major facelift.

Taubman Centers is embarking on a $500 million remodel of Beverly Center this month that promises to transform every aspect of the iconic — and monolithic — eight-story center, which opened in 1982.

Design and architecture giant CallisonRTKL named a global leadership team in retail design that includes the appointment of retail veteran Ignaz Gorischek as VP. He is with the firm’s retail practice group, in the Dallas office.