Mass Merchant

Supervalu posted $5.23 billion in net sales for the first quarter, a decrease of 0.1% from $5.24 billion last year; but president and CEO Sam Duncan expressed confidence in the company’s performance, saying it is off to a solid start across business segments.

“Our first quarter results reflect the investments we are making this year to position the company for future success and I am pleased with our operating performance,” said Duncan.

Oak Brook, Ill. — Inland Real Estate Income Trust announced the acquisition of the 86,800-sq-ft. Pick ‘n Save Shopping Center in West Bend, Wisconsin. Lou Quilici, senior VP of IREIT Business Manager & Advisor, Inc., assisted Matthew Tice, VP of Inland Real Estate Acquisitions in the purchase of the property.

New York – The National Labor Relations Board has issued a ruling that workers in the cosmetics and fragrances department in a Macy’s store located in Saugus, Massachusetts, have the right to attempt to unionize. According to the Wall Street Journal, the 3-1 ruling sided with the United Food and Commercial Workers union and said the 41 Macy’s employees form a community of interest.

The National Retail Federation has joined the growing chorus of voices expecting a surge in consumer spending during the next five months to compensate for a weak start to the year.

New York -- Target Corp. on Sunday, July 27, will unveil its small-store format, TargetExpress, in Minneapolis.

The 20,000-sq.-ft. store is located on the street level on an apartment building near the University of Minnesota campus and is also close to the retailer’s headquarters.  

New York - The back-to-school (BTS) shopping season is already in full swing, with over one-third (37%) of consumers having begun their shopping – up from the 29% who started at this time last year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. And roughly 90% of households indicated a selection of brick-and-mortar retail as a shopping venue for the BTS season.

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.