TENANT UPDATE

Sunflowers have sprung up all around the streets of Assembly Row, located in Somerville, Mass. — in shop windows, on sidewalk signage, billboards, bathroom doors, hand sanitizers, and automatic parking lot gates.

“We’re thrilled to see you,” shouted signage to guests returning to MainPlace, in Santa Ana, Calif., and most of them had heard or seen similarly toned messages placed by the mall’s owner Centennial on ads and billboards and social media.

In 1989, when Tony and Kathy Pietoso left St. Charles, Mo., to open a white table cloth Italian restaurant called Café Napoli in Clayton, Mo., the top eatery in St. Charles was a place called Noah’s Ark, which looked like the famed boat and was surrounded by fiberglass animals.

Where malls of the ‘80s sought Macy’s and Dillard’s as anchors for their tenants, RocaPoint Partners and The Georgetown Company went in an entirely different direction at this mixed-use center that opened in 2019. 

Kate Spade Outlet’s first Philadelphia store opened this week at PREIT and Macerich’s new Fashion District on Market Street.

CBL Properties told Chain Store Age it had nothing to add to a report from Bloomberg last week that it was preparing a bankruptcy filing, but it did have a new store concept to add.

That old proverb about getting lemons and turning them into lemonade? Easton Town Center, in Columbus, Ohio, performed a nifty COVID version of it. 

It’s no secret that many of America’s malls are in need of some revitalizing care, but one in Bucks County, Pa., is readying itself to provide it.