Supermarket/Grocery

Covington, La. -- Stirling Properties announced the closing of the land acquisition and development financing for Mid-City Market, a 107,713-sq.-ft. Winn-Dixie anchored shopping center located in New Orleans.

Mid-City Market’s amenities will include terraced outdoor seating and pedestrian plazas, benches, bike racks, trellises, and native landscaping throughout to compliment the proposed Lafitte Greenway pedestrian and bicycle pathway which will border Mid-City Market.

Nashville, Tenn. -- X Team International announced that Nashville-based partner Baker Storey McDonald Properties has acquired two shopping centers located in Kentucky and Ohio.

Pleasanton, Calif. -- Safeway Inc. posted a drop in quarterly net income amid higher commodity costs.

The chain said fourth-quarter net income fell to $215.6 million from $229.6 million a year earlier.

Total sales increased 6.2% to $13.6 billion. Same-store sales rose 1.5%, excluding fuel.
 

Santa Monica, Calif. -- Branding agency The Richards Group said Wednesday that, on behalf of client H-E-B Grocery Co., it has selected production company King and Country to create six new spots featuring a mixture of kids, family pets, animated typography, and the red and white colors from H-E-B's logo.

The first of the 15-second spots debuted Wednesday in targeted TV and cable outlets and on HEB's social media channels, including www.YouTube.com/HEB.

Minneapolis -- Target Corp. reported Thursday that profit for the quarter ended Jan. 28 slid 5.2% to $981 million, from $1.04 billion in the prior year.

Revenue increased 3.3% to $20.94 billion, missing Wall Street’s expected $21.23 billion in revenue. Same-store sales rose 2.2%.

Heavy discounting during the holiday season cut into fourth-quarter profits, but Target still is forecasting a full-year profit outlook that beats analysts’ expectations.

ST. LOUIS — Supervalu subsidiary Save-A-Lot is expanding its presence in Pennsylvania.

The company is slated to open four new stores in Pennsylvania in February and March, bringing the total number of Save-A-Lot stores in the state to 76, the company said.

St. Louis -- Save-A-Lot, a wholly owned subsidiary of Supervalu, will open 13 stores in February and March.

The grocer will open three locations in New York bringing the total number of Save-A-Lot stores in the state to 52. In Ohio, it will open three stores, for a total of 128 locations state-wide. The chain will open four stores in Pennsylvania, for a total of 76, and three in Tennessee, for a total of 108.

Duluth, Ga. -- NCR Corp. announced that the company’s point-of-sale terminals will now be the preferred checkout technology at Springdale, Ark.-based Harp’s Food Stores, an employee-owned company, which operates 66-plus grocery stores in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

NCR’s RealPOS 60 checkout terminals will be used in all new Harp’s stores and will replace checkout equipment at 10 existing Harp’s stores. The grocer chose the NCR technology due to its high serviceability, compact size and price-to-performance ratio.

After 30 years in the drug store sector, Michael Bloom left CVS Caremark in September 2011 to become president and COO of Family Dollar Stores. The extreme-value chain has adopted an aggressive growth strategy in recent years, and plans to open 450 to 500 stores in 2012.

Family Dollar is equally committed to improving existing locations. Under its ambitious store-reinvention program, an estimated 1,000 locations are scheduled to be renovated, relocated or expanded this year.

A phenomenon that continues to boggle my mind and, in many cases impress me, is how the Texas economy continues to flourish. Even in the midst of the recent economic downturn that left few retail markets untouched, the Lone Star State remained one of the few bright spots in a recessionary sky.