Supermarket/Grocery

Green Bay, Wis. – Shopko intends to open five  stores under its Shopko Hometown banner in Afton, Wyo., St. Peter, Minn., and Winneconne, Ellsworth and Tomahawk, Wis., in late fall of this year.

The Shopko Hometown format is designed to serve smaller rural communities with the same product assortments available in larger areas and Shopko currently operates more than 180 stores in this format.

Chicago -- The Opus Group has begun construction of a 31,175-sq.-ft. center in Glen Ellyn, Ill., near Chicago. A 20,300-sq.-ft. The Fresh Market will anchor the project.

The site, a vacated car dealership, will include patio seating and 186 parking spaces.

The center is 75% leased. In-line tenants include Great Clips and the first Tide Dry Cleaners in the Chicago area.

Serving the Glen Ellyn and North Wheaton communities, the center is slated to open in late 2013.

Grand Rapids, Mich. -- Meijer will open two 190,000-sq.-ft. supercenters in the northern Indiana towns of Portage and Warsaw on June 13. Meijer operates more than 200 stores in the Midwest and will have 32 stores in Indiana. Meijer expects the stores to create more than 500 new jobs.

Richmond, Va. -- Jones Lang LaSalle has closed the sale of phase I of Hancock Village on behalf of Edco in Richmond, Va.’s Chesterfield submarket.

Cole Real Estate Investments purchased the 153,853-sq.-ft. shopping center anchored by Dick’s Sporting Goods and Hobby Lobby. A Walmart Supercenter shadow-anchors the development.

JLL said the center is 100% leased.

Purchase, N.Y. -- Old Colony Square Center in Jersey City, N.J., will look like new by the end of the year. Owner National Realty & Development Corp. will begin renovations to the Pathmark-anchored center this summer.

Washington, D.C. -- U.S. retailers added almost 28,000 new jobs in May, according to statistics from the Department of Labor. This followed 20,000 new retail hires in April.

Restaurants hired another 38,000 people last month.

New retail and restaurant hires helped drive the addition of 175,000 total new jobs to the U.S. economy in May.

Washington, D.C. -- Import volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to increase 1.1% in June over the same month last year, reflecting modest growth expectations as retailers head toward the back-to-school and holiday seasons, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.