Supply Chain & Merchandising

Minneapolis – Target Corp. reportedly plans to hire 70,000 seasonal workers for the upcoming holiday season, about 20% less than the 88,000 seasonal workers it hired for last year’s holiday season.

According to the Associated Press, Target wants to give full-time employees more opportunity to take on extra holiday hours. The retailer also wants to better anticipate and schedule for fluctuations in holiday traffic. About one-third of seasonal employees brought on last year obtained full-time jobs at Target.

Charlotte, N.C. — Rite Aid Corporation has selected AMTdirect’s real estate software solution to manage its portfolio of more than 5,800 locations. AMTdirect’s integrated platform will help Rite Aid define and implement its real estate strategy by consolidating data, streamlining key business processes and informing decision-makers at all levels.

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Staples Europe has launched a new Staples.es website aimed at helping small businesses locate and purchase products.

The site has a new look and feel and offers many new features to improve the overall shopping experience including personalized shopping with product recommendations based on customer preferences, an updated search engine and filtering tools, streamlined reordering for frequently used products, and quick checkout with a mini-cart that designed to ease inserting coupons, saving addresses and reviewing orders.

Meriden, Conn. — A TJX Marshall’s store has leased a 23,137-sq.-ft. space at the Meriden Mall in Meriden, Conn. Charter Realty and Development represented the TJX Company in the transaction. Charter Realty is TJX’s exclusive broker for Connecticut, and this is the 25th lease TJX lease the company has arranged.

Anchored by Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Macy’s, the 894,435-sq.-ft. mall, owned by The Westfield Group, has 142 stores and ranks as the seventh largest mall in Connecticut.

Cincinnati – David B. Dillon will step down as CEO of The Kroger Co. effective Jan. 1, 2014. Dillon, 62, is a 37-year Kroger veteran who has been serving as CEO since 2003; he will remain chairman of the board.

Indianapolis — Simon Property Group and Tanger Factory Outlet Centers have announced that construction has begun on Charlotte Premium Outlets. The first phase of the planned 400,000-sq.-ft. center will open in the summer of 2014. The project is a 50/50 joint venture between Simon and Tanger.

Charlotte Premium Outlets will feature Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th and more than 90 other outlet stores.

Tanger is providing site development and construction supervision to the venture. Simon is providing management services and marketing.

Charlotte, N.C. — Fiesta Restaurant Group has selected the AMTdirect software platform to manage its portfolio of more than 300 company-owned and franchised locations in the U.S. and Latin America.

AMTdirect’s integrated platform will streamline processes, consolidate real estate data across the business and provide Fiesta with a 360-degree view of its entire portfolio.

Philadelphia — Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust has completed the sales of two power center properties. In two separate transactions, PREIT sold Christiana Center in Newark, Del., and Commons at Magnolia in Florence, S.C. for $87.3 million. The proceeds represent a blended cap rate of 6.8%. Gains on the sales totaled approximately $45.4 million.

In connection with these transactions, the buyer assumed the $49.2 million mortgage loan secured by Christiana Center.