Department Store

Indianapolis - Julie Lyle, chief marketing officer of Hhgregg, has been named the 2015 chairperson for the Global Retail Marketing Association (GRMA) Advisory Board, an association for C-level executives from global retailers. As chairperson, Lyle will lead the GRMA Advisory Board and play a key role in the development of the organization’s strategic initiatives and thought leadership.

North Brunswick, N.J. - Staples has leased a 14,000 sq. ft. space at North Village Shopping Center in North Brunswick, N.J. Levin Management, exclusive leasing and managing agent for the 132,000-sq.-ft. center, negotiated the lease.

The economic trend for some time now has been a slow and meandering recovery. Despite improving consumer confidence numbers, a surprising first quarter GDP decline of 2.9% speaks to that uncertainty. Retail analysts and observers have a tendency to blame the weather whenever we have a bad economic quarter or when retail sales are unexpectedly sluggish, but I tend to be a little dubious of those explanations. Last winter was definitely rough enough to impact spending, but I don’t think it’s enough to explain the continued issues into the spring.

Hoffman Estates, Ill. - Sears Outlet Stores has leased a 354,000-sq.-ft. former Sears location in Kansas City, expanding outlet store operations and services and developing a new central distribution center for the South-Central region. This new repaird and distribution center is expected to create nearly 160 new jobs to be filled by Kansas City locals.

San Francisco -- Continuing its global growth, Gap Inc. on Monday announced that it will introduce the Gap brand to Slovenia and Austria through agreements with new and existing franchise partners. Magistrat International, a new partner, has been selected for the launch of Slovenia. Gottex, which currently manages the Gap franchise business in Israel and Hungary, will launch Austria.

Ross Stores is in the process of opening 23 Ross Dress for Less and seven dd's Discounts stores across 17 different states. The new locations are part of the off-price retailer's plans to add a total of 75 Ross and 20 dd's Discounts stores during 2014.

"These latest openings reflect our ongoing expansion strategy to fill in our presence in existing markets while also increasing penetration in our newer Midwest region where we added another eight Ross locations in July,” said Jim Fassio, president and chief development officer.

Stamford, Conn. -- General Electric is spinning off its Synchrony Financial consumer credit business in an initial public offering (IPO) and seeking a market valuation as high as $22 billion. Synchrony offers store credit cards for retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and J.C. Penney Co.

Mahwah, N.J. - Dirk Montgomery, executive VP and CFO of Ascena Retail Group Inc. since January 2013, has accepted a position with a healthcare-related company based in Florida. Ascena has initiated a search process for a new CFO.

Montgomery has agreed to remain through the end of the summer. Randy Pearce, a member of Ascena’s board of directors, chair of the Audit Committee, and former CFO of Regis Corp. from 1998 to 2011, will increase his involvement in overseeing the company’s finance department during the transition.