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Dillard’s and Trademark Buy Texas Mall
Bridge33 Lines Up $460M in CMBS Refinancing for 12 Retail Properties
Whole Foods’ Pipeline Will Reach 100 Stores by New Year’s
Aldi’s First Midtown Manhattan Store Will Open in 2026
Walgreens Boots Alliance Has Gone Private
Why Newmark’s Brandon Isner Is Bullish on Retail
Atwell Acquires Manhard Consulting
Dillard’s and Trademark Buy Texas Mall
Dillard’s has headed in a different direction from those big-box retailers that are closing stores. The department store chain, which operates 272 stores in 30 states and is one of the mall’s anchors, has teamed up with Trademark Property Co. to buy Longview Mall in East Texas. WPG sold the mall for $34 million, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Dillard’s now co-owns Texas’ Longview Mall, where the department store chain is one of the anchors. Photo courtesy of Trademark Property Co.
Trademark — which owns, develops and operates mixed-use properties — will handle operations and leasing for the 646,000-square-foot property, the only enclosed mall within a 45-mile radius. Aside from Dillard’s, tenants include HomeGoods, Bath & Body Works, Foot Locker, H&M, Chick-fil-A and Chuck E. Cheese.
Trademark founder and CEO Terry Montesi said the new owners will revamp the mall to “enhance its position as a community hub for shopping, dining and entertainment.” Longview Mall attracts more than 3.7 million visitors per year. “The deal underscores the long-term viability of malls and their heightened value as retail space remains scarce and tenant demand soars,” Trademark noted.
Montesi told C+CT that the mall’s makeover, set to take place over the next one to two years, will include an upgraded tenant roster, more green space and restaurants, exterior and entrance enhancements, and new furnishings, lighting and common area amenities. “We already have serious interest from a couple of better tenants,” said Montesi.
FROM THE C+CT ARCHIVE: Terry Montesi in The Road Maps (Plural) for Reinventing Enclosed Malls
The Dillard’s-Trademark acquisition of the Longview property is similar to a deal Walmart made earlier this year. The big-box retailer purchased the 1.2 million-square-foot Monroeville Mall and Annex outside Pittsburgh, also for $34 million. The property’s new operator, Cypress Equities, has said it will oversee a project to “reimagine” the Monroeville site as a retail and commercial hub.
Bridge33 Lines Up $460M in CMBS Refinancing for 12 Retail Properties
Bridge33 secured a $460 million commercial mortgage-backed securities refinancing loan for a 12-property, 4.1 million-square-foot retail portfolio spanning nine states. As of May, the portfolio was 91.4% leased and had more than 260 unique tenants, according to KBRA. Wells Fargo handled the refinancing. International Financing Review identified Bridge33 as the borrower.
Ratings agency KBRA reported details about the transaction, including that 77% of the loan amount is allocated to properties in five states: Illinois at 24.6%, Colorado at 15.4%, South Carolina at 15%, Michigan at 11% and Georgia at 10.7%. The loan carries an initial two-year term and three one-year extension options and requires monthly interest-only payments.
MORE FROM C+CT: Retail Real Estate Refinancing Is Heating Up
Watch Bridge33 CEO Jahan Moslehi on The Matthews Mentality Podcast
Whole Foods’ Pipeline Will Reach 100 Stores by New Year’s
Whole Foods Market is expanding its footprint rapidly. By the end of 2025, more than 100 new stores will be in the grocery chain’s pipeline. The goal is to open more than 30 of those stores per year, the Austin Business Journal reported.
In June, Whole Foods Market opened an 8,500-square-foot Daily Shop in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. Photo courtesy of Whole Foods Market
After a rather dormant period for growth, the natural and organic foods retailer added 10 stores in 2024, according to the Austin Business Journal. As of Aug. 27, Whole Foods had opened 12 traditional stores this year in the U.S. and U.K., and it operates 544 stores in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Since Amazon acquired it in 2017, Whole Foods’ store count has grown 16%.
Some of the new stores won’t look like traditional locations. Whole Foods introduced its Daily Shop concept last September on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The concept features a small-footprint, quick-shop format. Three Daily Shop locations are now open, and more are in the works for Brooklyn’s Williamsburg; Hoboken, New Jersey; and Arlington, Virginia’s Crystal City.
Aldi’s First Midtown Manhattan Store Will Open in 2026
Elsewhere in grocery land, Aldi is gearing up to open its first store in Midtown Manhattan. Aldi recently signed a lease with Taconic Partners and National Real Estate Advisors for 25,000 square feet at The Ellery, a 32-story residential tower, a block west of a New York Times Building retail condo whose discounted sale made news last week.
An Aldi store in Chicago Photo courtesy of Aldi
The Aldi store, expected to open in 2026, will be the discount grocer’s second location in Manhattan, joining a store in East Harlem. CBRE’s Lon Rubackin, Michael Kadosh and Bevan Cohen represented the owners. Ripco Real Estate’s Esther Bukai represented Aldi.
The Midtown Manhattan store is part of Aldi’s U.S. expansion. This year, Aldi plans to open more than 225 new stores. A five-year, $9 billion growth plan announced in 2024 envisions 800 new U.S. stores by 2028. Those locations will be a combination of new stores and store conversions, Chain Store Age reported. Aldi operates more than 2,567 stores in the U.S.
Aldi’s 100-Store Club
- Florida: 273
- Illinois: 215
- Ohio: 172
- Pennsylvania: 169
- New York: 139
- Texas: 128
- Michigan: 115
- Missouri: 103
- California: 109
Source: Aldi
Walgreens Boots Alliance Has Gone Private
Sycamore Partners and Stefano Pessina and family yesterday completed their acquisition of Walgreens Boots Alliance, which was announced in the spring.
Photo credit: Eduardo Barraza - stock.adobe.com
The Pessinas have reinvested all their Walgreens Boots Alliance interests into the private venture. Stefano Pessina, who had been executive chair of Walgreens Boots Alliance, said: “This milestone begins a new chapter for Walgreens, The Boots Group and the other portfolio businesses. Our family has proudly supported these companies for decades, and we are pleased to continue that commitment alongside Sycamore.”
Walgreens, The Boots Group, Shields Health Solutions, CareCentrix and VillageMD each now operates as a standalone company. The new owners are likely to sell VillageMD — which includes Village Medical, Summit Health and CityMD — as a Sycamore press release states that Walgreens Boots Alliance shareholders will receive the right to additional cash “from the net proceeds of the future monetization of WBA’s debt and equity interests in VillageMD.”
Why Newmark’s Brandon Isner Is Bullish on Retail
Newmark head of U.S. retail research Brandon Isner has a message for retail naysayers: Brick-and-mortar retail is not on its deathbed. Isner told Institutional Real Estate’s Real Assets Adviser that his research shows U.S. retail sales per square foot excluding automobiles, auto parts and gasoline have jumped about 45% since 2019. At the same time, retail space per capita has gone down, he said.
Brandon Isner Photo courtesy of Newmark
Isner declared that the future of brick-and-mortar retail “looks very bright.” He told Real Assets Adviser: “There’s definitely some public opinion that thinks retail is dying. They point to dead malls and such. But the reality is, with so little new construction over the past 10 years, everything else has caught up. Retail space is more productive than it’s ever been, and there’s still room to raise rents, especially when retailers vacate.”
Watch Brandon Isner on Hubexo’s Brick and Mortar Podcast
Atwell Acquires Manhard Consulting
Consulting, engineering and construction services firm Atwell has acquired engineering and surveying firm Manhard Consulting. Manhard, which employs nearly 400, will strengthen Atwell’s position in Colorado, Illinois and Tennessee and give Atwell a presence in each Nevada and Tennessee. Atwell employs more than 2,100 people. Manhard has worked on retail centers, mixed-use developments, grocery stores, restaurants and gas stations, while Atwell’s project roster includes retail centers, single-tenant developments, hotels and gas stations.
—Additional reporting by C+CT editor-in-chief Amanda Metcalf
By John Egan
Contributor, Commerce + Communities Today