STORE SPACES

New York City -- Sports Authority will open its first S. A. Elite stores outside of Colorado and California in two locations in the Chicago suburbs in November, according to Crain’s Chicago. As additional Elite store will open in Chicago’s Water Tower center next spring.

The stores will range from 11,000 sq. ft. to 15,000 sq. ft., and feature an edited collection of merchandise that emphasizes tennis, golf and yoga.

Grand Rapids, Mich. -- Meijer on Thursday will unveil its newest concept, Meijer Marketplace, opening a store in Melrose Park, Ill.

At 90,000 sq. ft., the new store will be nearly half the size of Meijer's largest supercenters. The smaller-format store, described as a "mini" supercenter concept, will focus on providing local customers with a tailored grocery shopping experience with fresh quality meats and produce, as well as a wide variety of deli, bakery and pantry items.

San Diego -- Ikea said Tuesday that it has officially powered up its solar energy installation at its 198,000-sq.-ft. store in San Diego.

The 30,000-sq.-ft. array consists of a 252-kW system, built with approximately 1,120 panels.  It will produce approximately 366,400 kWh of clean electricity annually, the equivalent of reducing 290 tons of carbon dioxide, eliminating the emissions of 50 cars or powering 32 homes yearly.

San Francisco -- Gap Monday today released its fifth Social and Environmental Responsibility report, a comprehensive update on its supply chain operations, environmental programs and community investment efforts from 2009 to 2010.

In the report, the company committed to reducing the absolute greenhouse gas emissions from its operations in the United States by 20% by 2015, when compared with 2008 levels. This follows an earlier 20%  decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from 2003 to 2008.

New York City -- Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room, a bio-robotic virtual fitting room for e-commerce apparel websites, announces its launch with Barbour By Mail, the official U.K. online partner of  lifestyle clothing brand Barbour. Barbour By Mail’s dedicated website is now offering its online shoppers the ultimate customer service -- providing a fitting room to ease the challenge of purchasing clothes that fit.

Cleveland -- Forest City Commercial Management, in partnership with FaceCake Marketing Technologies, said it is previewing a new technology at three of its California shopping centers that allows mall shoppers to try on a vast inventory of clothing and accessories from multiple stores via the first full-motion, 3D, real-time virtual dressing room.

Salisbury, N.C. -- Grocery chain Food Lion said Tuesday that two of its stores have earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2011 Gold-Level GreenChill Store Certification Award, one of the agency's highest honors for refrigeration.

The stores are located in Conyers, Ga., and in Columbia, S.C.

Food Lion became a founding partner with the EPA's GreenChill program in 2007. Since that time, the grocer joined other food retailers to reduce refrigerant emissions and decrease impact on the ozone layer and climate change. Food Lion has won GreenChill's Distinguished Partner Award and its Superior Environmental Achievement Award in the past.

"Our company is committed to going beyond simply reducing refrigerants," said Susan Sollenberger, director of energy, maintenance and equipment purchasing at Delhaize America South. "In addition to reducing emissions through the EPA's GreenChill partnership, we contin

Albuquerque, N.M. -- Kroger Co. said Tuesday that its Smith's Food & Drug Stores division has completed the installation of photovoltaic energy panels at two Albuquerque, N.M. stores.

The solar energy output from these two store systems is 320,000 kWh, eliminating the need for that amount of energy from fossil fuel sources. It is estimated this energy savings would heat and cool 30 homes in New Mexico for one year; is the equivalent of planting 57 acres of trees; or removing 40 cars from the road.