Department Store

CROSSROADS

Location: Irvine, Calif., at the intersection of Culver Drive and Barranca Parkway. Average daily traffic is 43,000 vehicles.

Size: 334,000-sq.-ft. community center

Developer: Irvine Co. Retail Properties

New York -- L Brands Inc., parent of  Victoria's Secret, is bullish when it comes to foreign expansion. The company opened 160 international stores in 2013, for a total of 863 locations. It hopes to add more than 140 this year, according to Columbus Business First.

Victoria's Secret expects to open 100 stores in 2014, including six additional locations in the United Kingdom, the report said.

Glendale, Calif. — Throughout the spring and summer, Glendale Galleria will open nine new stores and eateries including Armani Jeans, Blaze Pizza, Brighton Collectibles, Chipotle, Coach, Earthbar, Lolli & Pops and Zumiez.

They will join La Baugette, another newcomer, which opened its Glendale Galleria location back in February.

Remember 2011 and 2012? Back then, the forecasters were saying that the economy would probably be sluggish through 2013. After that, starting in 2014, growth would return.

Ottawa, Canada -- Well-executed dynamic pricing strategies, such as those deployed by Amazon and Overstock, led to higher sales during the 2013 holiday season as opposed to all-season discounting and other strategies. In its “Retail’s 2013 Holiday Winners and Losers” report, pricing intelligence vendor 360pi rated retailers’ overall financial performance for the 2013 fourth quarter on a scale from +5 (above expectations/excellent) to -5 (below expectations/very poor) based on third-party financial analysts’ overall assessments.

Charlotte, N.C. — Belk has announced a $12.6 million expansion and renovation of its store in Cool Springs Galleria, a 1.1 million-sq.-ft. mall in Franklin, Tenn., a suburb of Nashville. CBL & Associates Properties and TIAA-CREF own the center jointly.

Belk plans to create a new fashion flagship store for the greater Nashville region.

San Francisco – Gap Inc. reportedly plans a substantial increase in its Gap and Old Navy store count in China during the next several years. Reuters reports that Gap plans to add 30 stores to its existing 81 Chinese locations.

Fremont, Calif. -- Men's Wearhouse Inc. and Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. may be inching closer to a deal. Men’s Wearhouse announced that it had reached a nondisclosure agreement with its rival, setting up talks that could lead to a merger of the two retailers. The two firms announced they are exchanging certain confidential information with each other and working in good faith to evaluate a potential combination.

As part of the agreement, Jos. A. Bank submitted a draft of a merger agreement to Men’s Wearhouse.