Retail

I visited my first Von Maur store in 1999, a decade after I relocated from southern boomtown Atlanta to Lincoln, Neb., a sleepy college town that only really wakes up on Husker football Saturdays. Today I am back home in Baton Rouge, La., still no bustling metropolis, but the food and football trump.

Here are several pure-play online retailers that are venturing into the physical space — or thinking about making the leap:

• Rent the Runway, which rents high-end designer gowns, dresses and accessories to women for weddings and other special events, will use a recent infusion of $24.4 million in financing to build showrooms where shoppers can try on the frocks and consult with stylists. The popular online destination reportedly has Chicago next on its agenda.

Development chief details chain growth

Chain Store Age asked Paul Carolan, chief development officer for Dallas-based Le Duff America, about the bakery-café company's aggressive growth plan in the United States.

The North American subsidiary of Paris-based Groupe Le Duff SA, Le Duff America now manages four brands in the United States: Bruegger's Bagels, la Madeleine Country French Café, Brioche Dorée and Mimi's Café, which was acquired in March.

Liberty Center is a 64-acre, 1.1 million-sq.-ft. mixed-use development located in the North Cincinnati market. It will be comprised of 600,000 sq. ft. of retail, including at least one 200,000-sq.-ft. department store and 370,000 sq. ft. of specialty retail and restaurants. Liberty Center will also include 100,000 sq. ft. of Class A Office, a 135-key hotel and 220 luxury residential multi-family units. A 60,000-sq.-ft., 14-screen second-level upscale theater with integrated dining is also planned.

One hundred and forty one billion dollars. That's the estimated brand value of Walmart, according to Interbrand's "Best Global Brands" report. The annual study ranks the 50 most valuable U.S. retail brands, along with the top store brands in countries around the world.

Editor's Note: Chain Store Age's 24th annual survey of Fastest-Growing Managers measures new domestic and international third-party management and leasing contracts obtained during the preceding calendar year (2012).

Last year's numbers were such that we couldn't limit our annual Fastest-Growing third-party managers listing to a top five; a sixth was added because the contract totals were that close.

The use of mobile devices by sales assistants and other associates presents retailers with new opportunities — and new challenges. Of the latter, one of the most critical has do with managing and maintaining the devices. According to one expert, the help desk can't be expected to do it all.

"Every device needs to be configured and supported and managed in some way," said Alan Dabbiere, chairman of AirWatch, a provider of mobile security and enterprise mobile management, in a presentation at the National Retail Federation Conference & Expo.

Irvine Co.'s The Market Place is too big for one city. It sprawls across two. Split in two by Jamboree Road, the southern half of the 120-store, 165-acre center resides in Irvine, Calif. The northern half is in Tustin.

The huge regional destination center combines open-air lifestyle retail with big-box retail. Nationally known value- and quality-driven store names offer apparel, books, electronics, fitness, groceries, home furnishings and decor, movie theaters, restaurants, various services, sporting goods, toys, and on and on.