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Philadelphia sandwich chain PrimoHoagies will open 21 franchise locations throughout the Northeast, adding to its 81 locations in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey and South Carolina. Garra Spas — where the main attraction is tiny, skin-eating fish — and BoxLunch, which sells pop culture branded merchandise and donates a portion of proceeds to charity, are opening franchises, including units at Columbiana Centre in Columbia, South Carolina.
Meanwhile, Centre Lane Partners’ fast-casual create-your-own salad concept, Saladworks, added more than 40 units in 2020. That includes not only traditional restaurant franchises, but also locations like universities, ghost kitchens and military bases. The company also is testing “Sally,” a salad robot for hospitals and other food vending locations. At least 20 restaurant openings are slated for the first half of 2021, and nine signed franchisees plan to have selected sites by midyear. Five locations are under construction.
Sephora will open its first Fargo, North Dakota, freestanding store in a West Acres shopping center space formerly leased to Talbots. Sephora, which operates a branded shop inside the mall’s JCPenney store, will spend $820,000 to renovate its new, 5,480-square-foot space. And Ashley HomeStore is moving into an empty former Younkers store at College Square Mall in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Ashley originally was scouting locations for a smaller, 25,000-square-foot-store but found the empty Younkers to be less expensive.
Dick’s Sporting Goods will open its first experiential store — at Eastview Mall in Victor, New York — in March. The concept merges service, experience, community and product and will include a 17,000-square-foot outdoor turf field for summer sports that converts into an ice rink in winter. It also will feature and a year-round rock climbing wall. The 100,000-square-foot store is in the mall’s former Sears.
Macy’s will open its second Market by Macy’s on Friday, in WestBend, a mixed-use development in Fort Worth, Texas. The scaled-down, 20,000-square-foot concept is part of Macy’s off-mall strategy to be more convenient. Macy’s opened its first Market by Macy’s last February in Southlake, Texas. The retailer has said it plans more such stores in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
Houston-based specialty furniture, mattress, home appliance and consumer electronic retailer Conn’s is expanding into the Tampa, Florida, market. The retailer will open two Conn’s HomePlus stores totaling 87,000 square feet this year: one at Horizon Park shopping center and one in Bradenton’s Cortez Plaza shopping center. The stores mark Florida’s second and third Conn’s HomePlus stores, bringing operating units to 149 locations across 15 states.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee is presenting an opportunity for cities, towns, homes and commercial buildings to participate in a lighting ceremony on Tuesday, Jan. 19, to remember lives lost to COVID-19. The committee will surround the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., with lights at 5:30 p.m. Eastern. Building owners and managers can participate by illuminating their buildings at 5:30 p.m. local time — an amber color is suggested — ringing bells and/or placing candles or lights in windows.
Revisit our stories from this week last year and compare notes with your 2020 self. P.F. Chang’s for example, seems ahead of its time, working on a no-seating restaurant this time last year.
P.F. Chang’s first no-seating restaurant to open in less than three weeks
When Walmart decided ‘good enough’ wasn’t good enough
Service tenants now outnumber retail tenants in the U.S.
Dallas–Fort Worth retail occupancy is at its highest in almost 40 years
Gap calls off Old Navy spinoff
Wall Street analysts praise Bath & Body Works’ resilience
Brookfield invests $5 million in e-sports operator
Customers crown HEB top U.S. grocer
Pop-up village gives digital brands a new channel
Florida mall finds success in continual evolution
Demographics and access to debt influence retailer success
L.A. center adds Britney Spears pop-up
The number of medical clinics located in shopping centers is expected to surge in 2021 as consumer demand for convenient, preventative health care services meets investor demand for essential-use properties, research firm Tether Advisors says in its 2021 Retail Healthcare Outlook.
“Medtail” clinics — which can range from primary care, preventative care and urgent or immediate care to specialties like allergies/asthma treatment, counseling and mental health services, dental, dialysis, orthopedics and physical therapy — are moving into prime spots left empty by retailers. That’s a shot in the arm for landlords and developers trying to find tenants in an economic downturn.
When looking for medical tenants in the past, shopping center leasing agents mostly targeted dialysis centers. This year, however, investors are funding other medtail ventures like dental, veterinary and other single-tenant opportunities. Primary care has the most growth potential, according to Tether’s survey of 230 commercial real estate and healthcare experts, who also cited counseling and mental health services as innovative and fast growing.
According to Tether Advisors’ survey
Sellers of net lease retail properties benefited from low interest rates and investor preference for essential-use properties in the fourth quarter, according to The Boulder Group’s Q4 2020 Net Lease Market Report. Cap rates on single-tenant, net lease retail properties compressed by six basis points from the third quarter to 6 percent. By comparison, cap rates for single-tenant, net lease industrial properties compressed by 13 basis points to 6.75 percent. Single-tenant, net lease office cap rates were static at 6.9 percent. Possible changes to the 1031 exchange tax benefit could stifle activity in 2021.
Women’s specialty apparel chain Christopher and Banks filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company plans to close most of its 449 stores and is in talks with potential buyers for the sale of its e-commerce platform. “Despite the tremendous advancements we have made in executing our strategic plan, due to the financial distress resulting from the pandemic and its ongoing impact, we elected to initiate this process and pursue a potential sale of the business in whole or in part to position the company for the future,” said president and CEO Keri Jones.
At Simon’s Coral Square in Coral Springs, Florida, the Florida Department of Health opened a clinic for vaccination appointments. And at Simon’s Rockaway Townsquare in Morris County, New Jersey, a 30,000-square-foot vaccination site is occupying a former Sears.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Amazon wants to convert the vacant Cortana Mall into a warehouse. A former Sears at Elyria, Ohio’s Midway Mall could become a logistics center if local officials approve the rezoning requested by owner Industrial Commercial Properties. And outside St. Louis, supermarket chain Dierbergs, residential developer McBride Homes and the city of Crestwood, Missouri, will redevelop Crestwood Plaza with a 70,000-square-foot Dierbergs and 81 single-family homes.
RELATED: Join the Mall Reincarnations Group Chat at the ICSC Community
Liberty University will demolish the former Macy’s anchor store at the university’s 423,132-square-foot River Ridge in Lynchburg, Virginia, pictured at top, to make room for an open-air, streetfront component that will include an indoor/outdoor food hall. Completion is projected for 2022.
Metro Commercial and Barron Collier Cos. are developing The Pointe, a 40,000-square-foot, open-air dining and retail center in Naples, Florida, tenanted by local eateries Fuji Sushi, Palumbo’s Pizzeria, South Street Grill and Tacos & Tequila Cantina. The restaurant hub will be part of the companies’ larger Founders Square mixed-use development.
In Mentor, Ohio, developers plan to convert a vacant strip center into the 37,000-square-foot mixed-use Uptown Mentor. The development will include 11,300 square feet of ground-level retail below 26,060 square feet of office that will span two levels. Construction starts this year, and completion is scheduled for 2022.
Brennan Investment Group plans to convert the Rustic Hills North shopping center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, into an industrial complex. The developer will demolish one building on the 22-acre site and convert three buildings totaling nearly 207,000 square feet. Retail tenants will remain in a fifth building that totals 9,742 square feet.
The $300 million, 309-acre mixed-use Silo Square in Southaven, Mississippi, will open in the spring with office space, six retailers and seven restaurants, including Staks Pancake Kitchen.
Urban Edge Properties appointed Danielle De Vita as executive vice president of development. De Vita has worked for Simon for 18 years, most recently as executive vice president of real estate. There, she directed more than $3 billion of development projects for the company’s Premium Outlets platform. At Urban Edge, she will lead the firm’s redevelopment pipeline, including projects at Paramus, New Jersey’s Bergen Town Center, Yonkers Gateway Center in New York and Massapequa, New York’s Sunrise Mall on Long Island.