Mass Merchant

Seattle -- Nordstrom announced plans to open a store at Mayfair, in Wauwatosa, Wis., the largest mixed-use shopping center in the state. Scheduled to open in 2015, it will be the retailer’s first full-line store in the greater Milwaukee area. Mayfair is owned by General Growth Properties.

The company plans to open an approximately 140,000-sq.-ft., three-level store. Nordstrom will join Macy's, Boston Store, Crate & Barrel and the Apple Store at Mayfair.

Atlanta -- Year-over-year retail dollar volume growth on Thanksgiving and Black Friday was healthy at 5.6% as many retailers started the holiday shopping season earlier this year and consumers welcomed the opportunity to find bargains, according to a study by First Data Corp.’s First Data SpendTrend analysis for Black Friday 2012 compared with Black Friday 2011. (SpendTrend tracks same-store consumer spending by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks at U.S. merchant locations.)

New York -- Discounters, which are expected to fare well this holiday season, showed mixed results in November. TJX Cos. reported Thursday that November same-store sales climbed 3%, missing Wall Street’s expected 3.6% rise but beating the retailer’s internal expectations.

Target Corp. saw same-store sales fall in November, hurt by weak sales during the first two weeks. Comps dipped 1%, while Wall Street expected a 2.1% gain. Revenue for the month was essentially flat.

New York -- Aeropostale reported Thursday that profit for the third quarter rose to $24.9 million, from $24.1 million last year.
 
Sales increased 2% to $605.9 million, beating Wall Street’s expected $601.2 million. Same-store sales dipped 2%.

A worse than expected 1% decline in November same store sales indicates the holiday season is off to a slow start at Target.

The 1% decline was substantially worse than the low single digit increase the company forecast at the start of the month when it reported a 2.4% increase for October that was toward the low end of guidance. The November weakness suggest traffic trends may be deteriorating at Target as the company said blamed the decline on a decrease in comparable store transactions following that metric’s flat performance in October.

CHICAGO — OfficeMax EVP and president of OfficeMax Workplace John Kenning has been appointed to the board of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.

The appointment comes just seven months after Kenning joined OfficeMax to lead the retailer’s contract division that was renamed OfficeMax Marketplace earlier this month.

Birmingham, Ala. -- Bayer Properties announced that, through a joint venture between it and institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, has acquired The Avenue Webb Gin outdoor mixed-use shopping center from Atlanta-based Cousins Properties.

CINCINNATI — Good news for Macy’s, which has closed the cash tender offer by its wholly owned subsidiary, Macy’s Retail Holdings, Inc., to purchase up to $700 million in aggregate principal amount of its outstanding debt securities.

“Through this transaction and our recent debt issuance, we have successfully improved our debt maturity profile and decreased our ongoing interest expense,” said Karen M. Hoguet, Macy’s, Inc. CFO.