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In the old days, outlet centers either didn’t offer food options or the pickings were pretty lean. In today’s iteration, however, food often takes center stage.

Villa Enterprises, a 50-year-old multi-brand restaurant operator of banners such as Villa Italian Kitchen, Mo’ Burger, South Philly Steak & Fries and Tinta Mexicana, has set the curve with its “Food Hall by Villa” in Simon’s Arizona Mills Shopping Center in Tempe. In a completely transformed, 13,262-sq.-ft. dining space with 14,280 sq. ft.

Prolific developer Trademark Property Company is doing its part to ramp up the country’s new development and active redevelopment stats. The Fort Worth, Texas-based firm has five projects under construction:

Retailers are facing a growing onslaught of lawsuits from current and former managers and assistant managers who claim their employers should have paid them for overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The managers’ assert that much of what the work managers and assistant managers do is not truly managerial and, therefore under the FLSA, they should not be exempt from receiving overtime pay for any time worked over 40 hours in a week.

Optimized centers provide greater flexibility

Gordmans enables growth in underserved markets with new technology platform

When Gordmans Stores Inc., the Omaha, Nebraska-based chain of 95 Midwestern discount stores, decided to expand into underserved markets in the central U.S., the retailer discovered its legacy IT systems would not adequately support its planned growth. Outmoded applications across a range of functions in the enterprise created such problems as the setting of a double-digit limit for location numbering.

For children on a long journey, the typical refrain is, “Are we there yet?” However, for retail IT practitioners and executives, the challenge is not in waiting to get “there,” but figuring out what “there” even is. The question for the IT journey on which retailers are now traveling can be more appropriately phrased as, “Where are we going?”

When was the last time you heard someone say, without a trace of irony, that a big-box store helped them get through the day?

Twenty-five years ago, Ray Oldenburg published “The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day.” Oldenburg, an urban sociologist, explained how certain stores were more than just places to shop.

Recent trends bode well for consumer spending    

Blue skies and cool breezes. That’s the economic forecast as the calendar turns for a new year.

Corner Bakery Cafe is in a growth mode. The company, which was acquired in 2011 by Roark Capital Group, an Atlanta-based private equity firm, is entering new markets and opening locations across the country, from New York City to Las Vegas. It will end the year with 185 cafes (114 company-owned and 71 franchised). The company plans to more than double its U.S. footprint by 2017 through a combination of franchised and company-owned cafes.

Gary Price, a restaurant executive with over 20 years of experience, joined Corner Bakery Cafe as president in October 2012.

It’s been another big year in terms of new store openings in New York City. Here are my top 10 faves: