News

By Rich Arlington

Record snowfall last season spelled trouble for many roofs and parking garage decks. The continuous storms that dumped more than 2 ft. of snow in New England alone had facility owners frantically addressing weight load issues as heavy snow and ice threatened, and in some cases caused, roof and deck top collapses. The fallout: a rise in lawsuits as owners, insurance companies and snow contractors battle over snow and ice procedures followed, or not, in comparison with written contracts.

REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) has opened its first Manhattan location, in the landmarked Puck Building in SoHo. The 35,000-sq.-ft. space (14,000 sq. ft. of selling space) has been restored to honor the iconic building’s more-than-century-old history — with a respect to detail evident throughout. How did REI come to select the Puck Building?

NEW YORK — U.S. consumer confidence rose more than forecast in December, to a six-month high, amid declining unemployment and lower gas prices.  The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index climbed to 69.9 from 64.1 at the end of November.   The metric averaged 89 points in the five years leading up to the recession.

Westboro, Mass. — Micros-Retail, a division of Micros Systems, announced that Barneys has launched the Micros-Retail miStore mobile point-of-sale solution in Barneys’ flagship New York store, starting this holiday season. The retailer is a long-time customer of Micros-Retail for point of sale, loss prevention and order management solutions.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Heineken has announced the appointment of Stacey Tank as SVP corporate relations. She will begin her role on Jan. 3, 2012.

Tank joins Heineken USA from General Electric, where she most recently led corporate relations for “Healthymagination” – GE’s $6 billion commitment to bringing better health to more people. Additionally she led the launch of a $1 billion global cancer campaign in September 2011, which included a $100 million open innovation challenge around breast cancer diagnostics.

By Craig Johnson

Despite being only the penultimate Saturday before Christmas, 2011’s “Super Saturday” December 17 broke the all-time record for holiday spending, with an estimated $26 billion in total retail sales, according to retail consultancy Customer Growth Partners. The total was just shy of the record $27 billion spent on Black Friday.

Last fall, Los Angeles-based mega mall owner Westfield Group announced it had partnered with tvsdesign on an innovative Web-based solution that would transform the art of common-area interior design into a more consistent and reliable science.

NEW YORK — Best Buy has informed some customers that it will not be able to fill their online orders, just days before Christmas, according to the Associated Press.

The chain said late Wednesday that "overwhelming” demand for some products from Bestbuy.com has led to a problem redeeming online orders made in November and December, the report said.