Retail

New York -- Consumer sentiment for the week ended May 27 maintained a near five-year high level, according to the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index on Thursday.

Crediting an improving economy and healing personal finances, Americans are expressing continued optimism, as the Index was at minus 29.7 in the period compared with minus 29.4 a week earlier. The margin of error for the figure is 3 percentage points.

According to Bloomberg, views on the current state of the economy matched a mid-April reading as the strongest since January 2008.

Milwaukee -- Chicago-based HSA Commercial joined leaders from the City of Wauwatosa to celebrate the groundbreaking of Phase I of The Mayfair Collection, a large-scale, mixed-use development at Highway 45 and Burleigh Street in suburban Milwaukee.

Phase I of the project will consist of adaptively repurposing functionally obsolete warehouse buildings along Highway 45 into new, contemporary retail environments.

Albany, Ore. -- Vintage Real Estate said that it has signed a lease with Hobby Lobby for a 61,000-sq.-ft. store at the Heritage Mall, marking the arts-and-crafts retailer’s first location in Oregon.

Hobby Lobby will be located in a former Gottschalks space.  It is expected to open in the first quarter of 2014. “Our ability to quickly fill this long-vacant space is a major step in the execution of our renovation and repositioning plans for Heritage Mall,” said general manager Betsy Penson.

By Crosby Renwick, [email protected]

The pundits say retail, as we’ve known it since the ancient Egyptians, is coming to an end. Ouch. That’s big. You have to admit the logic is not bad: When retail is literally everywhere, when we can buy virtually anything off our phones and have it delivered, why go to a store?

Dallas -- SRS Real Estate Partners said that Townsand Cropsey has joined the firm as senior associate in the Newport Beach office.

Cropsey will focus on tenant representation and investment services.



The company also announced that Katie Carlisle has been named an associate in the Austin office. Carlisle is actively involved in project leasing and tenant representation with a focus on development. She comes to SRS from The Retail Connection.

Atlanta -- The Home Depot announced a single-day effort to prepare residents in storm-prone regions for the upcoming hurricane season. On July 27, Home Depot said it will host Hurricane Preparedness Workshops at more than 700 of its stores from the Gulf Coast to New England.

The expansion of the workshops is one of several preemptive measures the company is taking in preparation for 2013 hurricane activity, which is once again predicted to be above average.

London — The International Council of Shopping Centers’ executive committee has elected Marcus Wild, CEO of SES Spar European Shopping Centers, as divisional VP for the association’s European division.

Whiting, Ind. -- Survey results released Thursday by CouponCabin.com found that more than one-in-10 Americans say their shopping habits have put them in debt, with 20% saying the most amount of shopping debt they've been in exceeds $5,000.

The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, also revealed that 41% of U.S. adults have created shopping debt of more than $1,000. Eleven percent consider themselves to be shopaholics.