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Fitness tenants are flexing their muscles by bringing in new, frequent visitors, according to new data. In May 2023, year-on-year visits to fitness tenants were up by 7.8% compared to 2022, according to placer.ai. That’s on top of a 30.3% increase in January, a 17.2% surge in February, an 11.4% climb in March and an 8.8% jump in April. According to Planet Fitness CEO Chris Rondeau, in the first quarter of 2023, 40% of the people who signed up for memberships at the company’s gyms had never joined a gym before. “We're also seeing that our members are more committed to fitness than they were pre-pandemic, with higher overall visits per member as all age groups are visiting more frequently than 2019,” Rondeau said. Gyms spend big on marketing to drive that traffic, he added. “We invested more than $0.25 billion last year to go after the 80% of Americans who do not currently belong to a gym. Our significant marketing spend enables us to attract someone at the right time when they are ready to start their health and wellness journey.” For its part, Planet Fitness plans to open 170 new locations this year, many in shuttered former big-box stores.
Macerich reclaimed control of 819,000 square feet worth of anchor space at its properties. The landlord bought the remaining 50 percent interest in five former Sears boxes from joint venture partner Seritage Growth Properties for an undisclosed price. Seritage announced plans to liquidate its portfolio last year. Seritage still has stakes in several former Sears-anchored malls with landlords RD Development and Simon.
After co-owning and managing the space with Seritage for eight years, Macerich can now redevelop the space on its own terms because it wholly owns each parcel. The five former Sears boxes anchor some of Macerich’s top performing properties in Arizona, California, Connecticut, New Jersey and Oregon, and plans are already underway to refill them. “This transaction allows us to continue to pursue redevelopment of these properties in any number of ways – from adding mixed-use and greater density, to bringing in highly productive retail performers,” said Dave Short, executive vice president, asset management, Macerich. Among the new uses Macerich is planning for these boxes: moving in fresh tenants like Primark and Target; adding fitness, residential, hotel, office and medical uses; and carving large spaces up into entertainment districts with multiple restaurants and experiential entertainment tenants.
More direct-to-consumer brands are realizing that it’s cheaper to sell goods via wholesale accounts in department stores and other physical locations than to try to acquire new customers online. Luxury blanket brand Sunday Citizen for one, expects to increase wholesale accounts to 40 percent of business eventually from 10 percent today and is adding its products to shelves in Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom stores nationwide instead of buying more Facebook ads. Sustainable shoe brand Allbirds, too, is adding wholesale accounts in addition to opening branded stores. In 2023, Allbirds added REI to the list of stores where its shoes are sold. And, “Beating customers over the head with marketing is far less efficient than shipping a crate of shoes to Nordstrom,” said Tom Nikic, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. “All these brands kept selling more stuff and losing more money.”
Louis Vuitton sets the bar for luxurious physical stores, with no expense spared in creating exteriors and interiors that spur consumers’ imagination. The world’s most iconic architects, including Frank Gehry, Jun Aoki and Marcel Wanders, have created buildings for the brand. A new coffee table book called “Louis Vuitton Skin: Architecture of Luxury” documents the French brand’s most iconic properties, including its stores in the Miami Design District, Tokyo’s Ginza district and Las Vegas CityCenter.
Computer geek destination Micro Center is opening more stores. Unlike its chief rivals Best Buy and Amazon, most of the company’s high-tech products, including keyboards, printers and other hardware, are not available for purchase online. Earlier this year, the company announced that it will grow its total store count to 28 by adding three new stores by the end of 2024, starting with one in Indianapolis this summer and others in Miami and Charlotte later. Stores average 30,000 square feet.
Outdoors gear retailer REI will open its second REI Co-Op store in late August in Clackamas, Oregon. The 16,113-square-foot store will sell used merchandise that has been purchased and returned at full-price in REI stores and online. It will open near the company’s full-price store at Clackamas Town Center. The other existing REI Co-Op store is in Manhattan Beach, California.
Italian chocolate maker Venchi is adding more mall units. The company, which operates 175 stores worldwide, has signed a deal to open six new mall stores at top malls across the country by year’s end. The company, famous for its in-store 10-foot-high chocolate waterfalls, currently has five streetfront units around New York City and mall units at Short Hills Mall, in Short Hills, New Jersey, and at Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia. The new units will open at such malls as King of Prussia Mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and Westfield Valley Fair in Santa Clara, California.
Walmart is getting in front of the electronic vehicle brigade. The company plans to build its own network of electronic vehicle charging stations at thousands of Walmart and Sam’s Club locations across the country by 2030. This would be in addition to the almost 1,300 EV fast-charging stations already available at more than 280 U.S. Walmart and Sam’s Club facilities. “With a store or club located within 10 miles of approximately 90% of Americans, we are uniquely positioned to deliver a convenient charging option that will help make EV ownership possible whether people live in rural, suburban or urban areas,” said Walmart’s senior vice president of energy transformation Vishal Kapadia.
By Brannon Boswell
Executive Editor, Commerce + Communities Today
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