Mass Merchant

Sidney, Neb. -- Cabela’s will open a store in Tulalip, Wash., in 2012.

The 110,000-sq.-ft. store will be located within Quil Ceda Village on the Tulalip Tribes Indian reservation, about 30 miles north of Seattle. It will be the outdoor retailer’s second Washington store.

The mixed-use project MarketStreet Lynnfield continues to forge ahead, as co-developers WS Development and National Development announced on June 6 that Whole Foods Market, Kings and Legal C Bar have signed leases to join the property.

Whole Foods will open a 45,000-sq.-ft. store at MarketStreet Lynnfield, which is located on Route 128/I-95 spanning Exits 42 and 43 in Lynnfield, Mass.

New York City -- Loehmann's Holdings announced  that Steven M. Newman has been appointed CEO.

Newman, who will also be a member of Loehmann's board of directors, will join the company in the second week of June. He assumes the CEO role from interim CEO Joe Melvin who will remain as COO of the company.

A lot of companies are content to conduct their annual meetings in a hotel ballroom near their headquarters, but not Target. This year the retailer and its senior executives are schlepping east to Pittsburgh where the company’s annual meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 8 at 1:30 p.m. at a store located about five miles east of downtown Pittsburgh at 6231 Penn Avenue. According to the company, “This location allows us to showcase our current general merchandise store design in the latter stages of construction prior to opening.”

Driving same-store sales at U.S. stores is the top priority of Walmart U.S. president and CEO Bill Simon and his boss, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., president and CEO Mike Duke. Both executives stated U.S. comp growth is their top priority on Friday and went on to add that they are confident the company has the right strategy and people in place to make it happen.

It takes a special type of person to work at Walmart, according to chief information officer Rollin Ford, who told those assembled at the company’s shareholders’ meeting that customer service is in their DNA.

Ford, a 28-year Walmart executive, was called into service for a brief presentation at the meeting to recount his experience of working at Walmart while founder Sam Walton was still alive, since most of the thousands of store associates and many of the executives who attended the event joined the company after Walton death nearly 20 years ago.

Thinking of opening a store on Manhattan’s Fifth Ave? Be prepared to shell out some hefty rent. The average rent for space along Fifth Avenue’s prime stretch from 49th Street up to 59th Street hit $1,900 per square foot in the first quarter, according to the latest CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) Global Retail MarketView. The second-highest U.S. retail market? Los Angeles, with rents of $520 per square foot.

It’s the time of year when retailers engage in the annual Dads and Grads promotional extravaganza, and Target is promoting the Apple iPad at $499 as a gift-giving solution.

The iPad appeared on a full-page ad in this week’s circular along with other Apple products such as the iPhone 4 and the iPod Touch.

Not that dads and grads wouldn’t want an iPad, and it never hurts to feature an item that shoppers can aspire to, but the iPad would appear to be out of the price range of most gift-givers, especially where Father’s Day is concerned.