• Abercrombie & Fitch is rebooting its Gilly Hicks lingerie brand with underwear, loungewear and activewear in patterns and colors that match all styles regardless of gender identity, plus a standalone store at Columbus’ Easton. More standalone stores may follow. Abercrombie opened the first Gilly Hicks tore at Massachusetts’ Natick Mall in January 2008, but in November 2013 announced it would close its stores and continue online.

• Warby Parker will grow its fleet ahead of a likely IPO. It plans to open more than 30 locations this year, bringing its total count to 160. The stores will have trained eye doctors, and the brand is becoming a covered provider on more vision insurance plans.

• Hilco Global and Gordon Brothers, known for helping retailers liquidate stores and merchandise, now are opening their own stores. The Shopper’s Find stores source directly from manufacturers and wholesalers, claiming discounts of as much as 60% on apparel, cosmetics, furniture, jewelry and small appliances. The two units that have opened obtained short-term leases from HBC for former Lord & Taylor stores at Wayne, New Jersey’s Willowbrook and Massachusetts’ Natick Mall.

• Auto supply stores are rolling out units. Bridgestone Retail Operations, which opened 28 stores in 16 states during the first half of 2021, has 27 locations on deck to open by the end of the year. Bridgestone operates more than 2,200 company-owned stores throughout the U.S. under the brands Firestone Complete Auto Care, Tires Plus, Hibdon Tires Plus and Wheel Works. And Monro, which has 1,197 stores, plans to build in the Southwest if it can’t find existing properties to acquire. In March, the company bought 30 Mountain View Tire & Auto Service units. Meanwhile, Detail Garage, which has 75 locations, expects to cross the 100-unit mark this year and then open 50 stores per year. The concept seeks franchisees in the Midwest, in the South from California to Florida, and in New York and New Jersey.

• Kindbody launched a mobile fertility clinic in Denver as a precursor to a store opening at the Cherry Creek North shopping center in the fall. The mobile clinic offers full-service fertility assessments and patient care throughout the process. Kindbody has 16 stores in Austin, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Princeton, New Jersey and a growing fleet of mobile care units. It said the mobile units allow it to enter markets quickly. Denver is Kindbody’s fourth new market in 2021, and the market’s Cherry Creek North is the 10th new store for the year. Thirteen more are scheduled to open by year-end, including in Orlando, Denver and Minneapolis, and a dozen more will open in 2022. The company recently raised $62 million in Series C financing.

• The Downtown Partnership of Baltimore aims to fill empty storefronts with an incubator program called BOOST, or Black-Owned and Occupied Storefront Tenancy. The first five participants are lined up: a cafe and bakery, a fashion label, a natural beauty products purveyor, a bridal gown shop and an educational hip-hop studio. Some have online businesses and wanted brick-and-mortar locations, and at least one is expanding to a second location. BOOST provides each entrepreneur as much as $50,000 in grant funding, and it supports the entrepreneurs throughout their first year with professional services like technical, legal, accounting, marketing and design and construction advice. All the businesses will sit within the 106-block Downtown Management Authority district.

• Canadian apparel chain Aritzia still is expanding in the U.S. The company opened one new U.S. store, at New York’s Woodbury Common, during the first quarter and plans six to eight more this year, including Canoga, California’s Westfield Topanga and The Grove in Los Angeles. The retailer operates 68 stores in Canada and 33 in the U.S., including a 13,000-square-foot New York City flagship.

• Discount grocer Save A Lot has pledged to remodel all 1,000 of its stores by 2024 using customer and employee feedback.

• Shuttered retail brands are staying alive on the shelves of other retailers. Nordstrom acquired a stake in the Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and Hiit brands from U.K. digital retailer Asos, which has purchased them from the now-defunct Arcadia this year. The deal makes Nordstrom the exclusive brick-and-mortar retailer of the brands, which once had their own stores. It also allows for Asos.com customers to pick up their orders at Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack stores beginning this fall. At the same time, Walmart is introducing merchandise from shuttered tween apparel chain Justice at 2,400 stores. Justice closed its 826 stores as part of the summer 2020 bankruptcy of former parent company Ascena Retail Group.

• Discount supermarket Aldi continues to experiment with concepts smaller than its traditional 16,400 square feet. The German company is testing an urban format called Aldi Corner Store. Designed by Landini Associates, the first unit recently opened in Australia, not far from Sydney Harbour. The layout is driven by the need to refurbish existing buildings rather than building new. Grocery and fresh produce are still the core offering but now are supplemented by ready-to-go meals, convenience-based products and take-out coffee and bakery goods, said Aldi Corner Store project director Hugh Longman. “The new Corner Store layout is aligned to the needs of a local, largely walk-in customer base, with simple navigation, self-checkouts, fresh offerings, quality products and everyday low prices with a nostalgic neighborhood feel,” he said.

In March 2020, Aldi began piloting a different convenience concept in London. The 6,400-square-foot Aldi Local store has no parking lot and stocks 300 different kinds of products, compared to Aldi’s traditional 1,800. The Local and Corner Store concepts are similar, though the Corner Store adds a focus on local artists. The company is mum on the expansion plans for either concept.

• Dickey’s Barbecue Pit will open the first physical outpost of its virtual brand Wing Boss this fall at Texas’ Addison Plaza. The previously delivery-only concept launched in March and already has grown to 60 markets. The 1,500-square-foot Wing Boss will include a full bar. Dickey’s has more than 500 restaurants and one other delivery-only brand, Big Deal Burger.

• Specialty card retailer Lovepop opened its biggest store yet, in a 1,200-square-foot former Papyrus on Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two Harvard Business School alumni launched the company, which sells 3D lasercut pop-up greeting cards, in part with funds from TV show Shark Tank. “While we continue to see significant success as a digitally native brand, physical retail was our fastest-growing channel pre-pandemic,” said co-founder and CEO Wombi Rose. “Retail continues to be a core channel for expansion and the most immersive brand experience for Lovepop.” The Harvard Square location will be the company’s fourth physical store in the Boston region since the beginning of 2020. Lovepop tested its first unit at Hudson Yards’ Floor of Discovery collection of digitally native brands in 2019 in New York City.