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July/August 2021

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from the editor’s desk

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On the Level: A real estate column

Contents

tech viewpoint: a retail tech column

VOL. 97 JULY/AUGUST NO. 4

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Retail Profile: Torrid CEO sees plenty of room for growth, online and off.

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Three areas to focus on as shoppers return to stores.

Rethinking fulfillment — from start to finish.

STORE SPACES

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Dick’s Sporting Goods on a roll opening new formats, remodeling existing stores.

Automation and artificial intelligence technology can help lower retailers’ energy costs.

Popeyes’ new Canadian restaurant was built in record time via process that combines sustainability with speed of delivery.

COVER STORY

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Easton Town Center tops the list of Chain Store Age’s annual Top 10 Retail Center Experiences.

ShopTalk: Bloomingdale’s debuts smaller-store “Bloomie’s concept; Google opens its first permanent store.

LED high-bay fixtures top the list of lighting products with highest rebates.

Supermarket chain reduces costs with HVAC and lighting upgrades.

Bed, Bath & Beyond transforms flagship with more remodels to come.

Vendor Q&A: ProCoat Products’ Lisa Schwartz discusses the advantages of restoring an acoustical ceiling rather than replacing it with a new one.

CSA (USPS 054-410; ISSN 0193-1199), is published bimonthly by EnsembleIQ, 8550 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60631, on a controlled basis to qualified retailer titles and architects.

Real estate and shopping center owners and developers $75 per year. All other non-qualified in the United States: $80 one year; $155 two year; $14 single issue copy; Canada and Mexico: $105 one year; $185 two year; $16 single issue copy; Foreign: $115 one year; $215 two year; $16 single issue copy. Digital edition subscription: $55 one year digital; $105 two year digital. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and additional mailing offices. ­POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to CSA, Circulation Fulfillment Director, 8550 W. Bryn Mawr Ave, Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60631. Subscription changes may also be emailed to contact@chainstoreage.com, or call 1-877-687-7321. Vol. 97, No. 2, March/April 2021. Copyright ©2021 by EnsembleIQ. All rights reserved.

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Contents VOL. 97 JULY/AUGUST NO. 4

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REAL ESTATE

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Top 10 Retail Center Experiences Columbus’ Easton Town Center repeats as No. 1. Check out the rest of the best.

TECH

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REGION REPORT: Midwest New retail construction is lagging here, so quality addresses are hard to find.

Holiday Prep: Tips to help retailers prepare for the upcoming holiday season include utilizing advanced distribution, logistics and warehousing systems.

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Retail, restaurant brands stake claim in the still-developing NFT market.

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Mall operators leveraging tech solutions to ensure their centers stay current and meet customer expectations.

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FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

Betting Big on Physical Retail There’s no denying that e-commerce was supercharged by the pandemic, with online becoming a fundamental channel for retailers big and small.

But for all the attention given digital commerce, it’s important to remember that the vast majority of sales still take place in brick-and-mortar stores. Physical retail has also proved itself critical to online commerce. Indeed, stores have emerged as the heart of the retail ecosystem: More than 95% of Target Corp.’s fourth-quarter sales were fulfilled by its stores.

In addition, store shoppers tend to spend more per order than online ones. A recent First Insight survey found that, fueled by impulse purchasing, more than 70% of instore shoppers said they spend more than $50 on orders, compared to 54% of online shoppers.

So it’s not surprising — at least not to me — that many retailers are investing in their brick-and-mortar assets. Save-A-Lot, for example, is remodeling all of 1,000 stores.

Dollar General will remodel 1,750 locations this year (while opening 1,050 new ones).

Victoria’s Secret is updating its stores, and also planning to test a “store of the future at three locations this fall. The new stores will be followed by another 10 test locations in 2022, And in one of the bolder moves by a traditional retailer, Abercrombie & Fitch is testing a gender-inclusive store for its Gilly Hicks brand. The store doesn’t separate the women’s and men’s departments. Instead, the product is merchandised by fabric and end-use.

Companies that some industry experts had previously written off as yesterday’s news are also putting skin in the game. Bed Bath & Beyond, for example, has launched a $250 million, three-year project to

CHAIN STORE AGE

update 450 stores as part of its overall transformation strategy.

The home goods retailer plans to modernize about 150 stores annually.

(Read about the dramatic make-over of the company’s Manhattan flagship on page of 16 this issue.)

The still-strong pull of physical retail is reflected in the new players entering the arena. Wilson Sporting Goods Co. opened its first physical store in July after being in business for 108 years.

The 2,247-sq.-ft. location, in Wilson’s Chicago hometown, celebrates the brand’s history and pays homage to Chicago. It will be followed by addition stores in cities such as New York and Los Angeles in the coming months.

At the opposite end of the spectrum (in terms of longevity) are digitally native brands that are looking to connect with customers in person. It’s a trend that started with Warby Parker and shows no signs of losing momentum anytime soon.

The hot online beauty brand Glossier recently announced plans to open dozens of stores in the coming years, starting in Seattle in August, followed

by Los Angeles and London later this year.

There’s also a new breed of tenants moving onto the scene, from cannabis shops to esports outposts. The UK’s Belong Gaming Arenas, owned by global esports and technology company Vindex, plans to open 500 esport gaming arenas in U.S. malls and shopping centers.

Outfitted with high-tech game stations and a “couch play zone,” Belong locations also sell snacks, drinks, console hardware, games and “gaming lifestyle” merchandise. The company’s first U.S. outpost will open at CBL’s Pearland Town Center, close to Houston.

As the world returns to normal (hopefully), I think it’s safe to say that physical retail remains as vibrant as ever. After the past year and a half, that’s quite an accomplishment.

Marianne Wilson mwilson@chainstoreage.com

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CHANNELS chainstoreage.com > COMMERCE > CUSTOMERS

An EnsembleIQ Publication

Corporate Office: 8550 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60631

Vice President, Group Publisher, CSA, SPECS Chairman Gary Esposito (212) 756-5118, gesposito@chainstoreage.com

Editor Marianne Wilson

(212) 756-5261, mwilson@chainstoreage.com

Technology Editor Dan Berthiaume

(978) 994-1881, dberthiaume@chainstoreage.com

Real Estate Editor and Manager Al Urbanski (646) 957-5224, aurbanski@chainstoreage.com

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Corporate Officers Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Litterick Chief Human Resources Officer Ann Jadown Chief Financial Officer Jane Volland Chief Innovation Officer Tanner Van Dusen Executive Vice President, Events & Conference Ed Several Senior Vice President, Content Joe Territo

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COMPANY PROFILE

Torrid Focused on Growth

Plus-size retailer sees plenty of room for expansion online and off

By Marianne Wilson

Liz Muñoz was named CEO of Torrid in August 2018.

The newly public Torrid is revving up its engines and sees ample opportunity for growth in the $85 billion market for plus sizes.

The retailer made a successful debut on the New York Stock Exchange on July 1, trading under the CURV ticker symbol.

Its shares opened at $21 and at market close were trading at $24, or 14% above the initial price. The company offered 11 million shares and raised $230 million, for a valuation of about $2.3 billion. (Torrid previously filed for an IPO in 2017, but eventually withdrew the filing.)

It’s the first time that private-equity giant Sycamore Partners took one of the brands in its retail portfolio public through an initial public offering. And it comes amid a bodypositive movement that has seen a number of brands embrace inclusivity.

“The timing is right for a plus-sized company,” said Torrid CEO Liz Muñoz. “We are at the intersection of a

body-positive movement that is truly empowering women.”

Torrid started out as a subsidiary of Hot Topic Inc., which was acquired by Sycamore in 2013 for about $600 million. The privateequity firm spun off Torrid as a stand-alone company in 2015.

Muñoz joined Torrid in 2010 as senior VP of product. (Prior to that, she was president of Lucky Brand Jeans.) She was named president in January 2018 and CEO in August 2018. Commenting on the company’s decision to withdraw its first filing, Muñoz said the timing for the IPO was not right back then. The company needed to take a step back. There was still work to be done.

Torrid had experienced skyrocketing growth year over year but, as sometimes happens, it had skipped some critical steps that would become important at some point, Muñoz explained. Among other things, the chain had an inventory problem.

And its IT and distribution functions were still being handled by Hot Topic.

“We didn’t have our head around inventory management,” Muñoz said. “We had no targets or disciplines around how we acquired inventory. And as a product person, I felt there was a constant proliferation of SKUs. With not having our inventory problem sorted out, and not having all the right leadership in place, we pulled the filing.

It just didn’t feel like the right time.”

After taking the reins at Torrid, Muñoz wasted no time in putting things to order and implementing the changes needed to make it the fully functioning independent company that it is today. She put in a new leadership team, including a COO who deployed core disciplines and targets, and reduced SKUs by 20%.

“So there a lot of reasons why the timing was right this time around for our IPO, both culturally as well as where we are as a company,” Muñoz added.

Torrid, which refers to itself as a directto-consumer company as opposed to a specialty retailer, generated 70% of its sales

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online last year. It posted net sales of $974 million in the pandemic year of 2020, compared to $1.04 billion in 2019. First-quarter 2021 sales jumped 109% year-over-year to $325.8 million.

While Torrid has made a number of investments to enhance and grow its digital operations, it remains committed to brickand-mortar. The company plans to open about 25 stores annually for the next few years. Stores average 3,000 square feet.

“Our model doesn’t really rely on us opening stores to be successful, but they are very important to us,” Muñoz said. “Most of our customers discover Torrid through our stores and they start their journey there, which we think helps them make better choices when they go online.”

Torrid’s target customers range from 25- to 40-years of age and wear, on average, size 18. The core customer is about 38 years old, with a higher income than average and a higher propensity to have children.

“I love that age range because the customer can really dig in,” Muñoz said. “As a big girl myself, I know it takes a while to get here … to not be caught up in that ‘am I a plus or not’ thinking.”

Understored Approximately 90 million U.S. women — or 70% of the female population — qualify as plus-size as defined by Torrid (sizes 10 to 30).

Muñoz noted that there are roughly 1,100 freestanding stores dedicated to those women (and that includes 608 Torrid stores) versus some 60,000 stores to serve conventional sizes.

“It’s crazy that 98% of women’s specialty stores are dedicated to only 30% of the population,” she said. “At Torrid, we believe in stores. This customer deserves to have a store, she deserves that experience.”

The CEO is a passionate advocate for a customer she believes has been ignored and underserved for too long. She believes Torrid stores have played a key role in helping to build loyalty with the brand. continued on page 10 JULY/AUGUST 2021

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COMPANY PROFILE

Torrid plans to open 25 to 30 stores annually for the next few years. continued from page 8

“We provide an extraordinary, very personal experience in our stores to a customer who is generally invisible, unwanted and unheard,” Muñoz said. “Our stores provide them with a place where they can feel ‘they get me,’ and a place where they can build community and connect.”

Looking ahead, Muñoz said Torrid’s biggest growth opportunity is attracting new customers to the brand. In the past, Torrid tended to market to the customers it had and focused on retention. The company is deploying a digital strategy to spread brand awareness and get the word out. It includes social media, an online influencer program made up of brand ambassadors and more.

“Currently, our stores are the number one way customers find out about Torrid,” Muñoz added. “ We want to augment that with a digital strategy.”

Torrid’s second-biggest growth opportunity lies in its intimates’ line, Torrid Curve. It includes bras, sleepwear, lingerie, activewear and swimwear.

“Bras is the second leading product that

a customer comes to us for, behind tops,” Muñoz said. “A customer who buys a bra in the first year with us is three times more valuable to us than one who doesn’t. We have patent-pending technology for our bras and are very focused on growing the category.”

Torrid sees itself as a one-stop shopping destination for curvy women. In addition to intimates, the assortment ranges from wedding dresses to workwear to denim and nearly everything in-between.

Fit-First Emphasis Torrid is focused on getting the right fit for its target customer. It’s no easy task. Plussize fitting is a big challenge, according to Muñoz. It’s not something that is taught in school in pattern-making.

“You have to learn it on the job and have a vision for it,” she said.

Nearly every item at Torrid is designed and sourced in-house, which helps drive consistent fit and quality. The company has worked to perfect the fit across every size it

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carries as opposed to simply “grading up” for extended sizes. It also doesn’t rely on mannequins during the fit process. Instead, it fits all its products on plus-size fit models, its own staff and most loyal customers.

“At Torrid, it’s all proprietary product and it’s all about the fit,” Muñoz said.

Despite its high volume of online shopping, Torrid has a low — 9% — return rate on online purchases (compared to an industry average of 30%). Muñoz said the company›s stores and its fit-first focus help keep returns down.

Indeed, Torrid has thrived even as many traditional brick-and-mortar women’s plus-size retailers have struggled or, as in the case of Catherines and Avenue, closed their doors permanently. Muñoz believes the industry has been slow to keep up with the reality of who the plus-size customer is today.

“She is either young in spirit or young in age,” she said. “Also, you have to focus on fit and the things that matter to your customer. I’m not sure that everyone did.”

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COMMENTARY

As Store Shoppers Return…

By Suzanne Larabie Pandemic-influenced trends are encouraging retailers to reimagine the in-person shopping experience and ask what the future of shopping will look like.

Now is the time for forward-thinking retailers and brands to seize this opportunity to connect with customers in new ways and focus on three areas for growth.

Deliver an immersive and engaging in-store experience An increase in digital interactions leveraging virtual reality and augmented reality have shaped consumers’ experiences with their favorite retail brands during the pandemic.

Consequently, as customers return, they will look to advances in technology to help elevate in-store experiences.

Traditionally, customers with in-store questions or needs relied on human interaction and customer service options. Now, new automation, inventory, and payment technology can support staff as customers browse and shop. While retailers were already looking to technological innovation as competitive advantages before the pandemic, it will now be an industry staple to meet consumer preference trends.

Additional modes of digital engagement can help shape the experience, including seamless checkout, digital payment and signage options, and mobile apps. These upgrades can influence in-store shopping experiences and encourage browsing and interacting with products — some can even enable purchases that ship merchandise directly to customers’ homes. Not only do these digital optimizations enhance the customer experience, they also allow for a continuous and consistent experience across shopping channels.

Redesign in-store layouts to accommodate new safety guidelines Many returning shoppers may still have reservations due to concerns for their safety and health. For retailers to ease these worries, they must take multiple factors into account as they reimagine the in-store shopping experience. State regulations for in-store

shopping differ, but many retailers have implemented their own set of guidelines as they reopen their doors.

During the pandemic, new policies were initiated to keep in-store facilities clean and disinfected, as per local guidelines. This included greater frequency of cleaning for high-touch surfaces and higher traffic areas such as checkout spaces, entrances and exits. Retailers should continue to follow a checklist that includes cleaning and sanitation practices as they welcome shoppers back in-store.

Beyond these standard practices, it is imperative for retailers to enhance the human assistance that has traditionally been an integral part of the shopping experience. In-store technology such as display monitors and kiosks can help brands provide information on inventory, online order pickups, and returns – all the while empowering customers to seek answers without face-to-face interactions.

Additionally, implementing shopping reservation slots to limit store capacity and adjusting store floorplans to encourage social distancing will emphasize new safety standards for health-conscious shoppers.

Personalize customer engagements across channels New advances in artificial intelligence are enabling brands to create personalized strategies across channels — helping a true omnichannel experience. Whether shopping in-store, on a mobile device or

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on their laptop, it is important that the consumer feels known and valued. These unique experiences can drive conversion and increase loyalty.

Some examples include: • A curated set of products with personalized recommendations based on browsing history; shopping habits, and previously purchased items; • In-store shopping guidance to help easily locate merchandise, answer questions, and pay via mobile; and • Virtual mirrors and mobile apps that allow for trying on products without going to a physical fitting room. This functionality supports a wide array of products, from clothing to shoes to makeup.

By building an experience that is personalized and catered to specific consumer needs, retailers can better target their customer market and create a competitive differentiator that fosters lifelong customers.

When it comes down to it, retailers must remember that shoppers are people. We are all telling our parents, siblings, children and friends to stay cautious as they venture into pre-pandemic activities again. By using digital means to increase safety onsite, while also enhancing the in-person shopping experience and personalizing each unique shopping journey, retailers can find their competitive advantage as consumers return to the store.

— Suzanne Larabie is VP of consumer products and retail at Capgemini North America.

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ANALYSIS

Rethinking Fullfillment — From Start to Finish

By Jill Standish and Sean Whitehouse As e-commerce sales skyrocketed during the pandemic, consumers revised their expectations around delivery. They now expect enhanced speed and convenience, along with greater transparency around orders, pick-up and delivery.

After becoming acquainted with these services, consumers are less understanding when companies fail to meet their requirements.

In response, brands have upgraded their capabilities at pace. Up to nine in 10 retailers offer buy-online-pick-up-in-store, reserve-instore, ship-to-store, ship-from-store, mobile app purchasing and home delivery. As a result, some have suffered a hit to their profits even while orders for home-delivery surge.

The challenge for retailers is that consumer expectations for omnichannel continue to evolve, and competitive differentiation is becoming harder to achieve. To truly meet customer needs and to do so profitably, brands are looking to provide omnichannel flexibility and scalability at the local level. But this, in effect, means rethinking fulfillment from start to finish.

Resetting an established supply chain strategy is no small undertaking. Here’s how retailers should proceed.

1/ Learn from the Future Retailers have access to rafts of data they did not possess even five years ago. As organizations fundamentally rethink ways of doing business that deliver growth, focusing on historical data to inform the future has been challenged.

To make decisions faster, organizations now need to use analytics and artificial intelligence to spot and help them understand future demand — and therefore where they should locate, design and build fulfillment centers, store networks and inventories.

Advanced and predictive analytics, using internal and third-party data sources, are key to forecasting demand, the impact of changing customer behaviors and shifting market dynamics at a local level.

2/Reconfigure the network The future of fulfillment lies in leveraging the growing number of distribution centers, micro-fulfillment centers, partial dark stores, dark stores and more.

Retailers are trying to understand how to configure these networks in such a way to meet customer demand while maintaining profitability. There will be no one-size-fits-all solution, with a variety of set-ups required to handle different volumes, order patterns and service requirements.

But the right mix of nodes — and an innovative approach to how different facilities can be used — can underpin a much broader and more compelling range of customer promises than retailers in the past could even imagine.

3/ Update inventory management Tomorrow’s inventory will be powered by analytics solutions that model consumers’ probable spending patterns (depending on their profile) to ensure retailers have the inventory they need for rapid fulfillment.

Without such tools in place, retailers will struggle to understand where to place inventory across their network of facilities. By contrast, retailers that can anticipate the levels of stocking required in each node, will be well-placed to improve sell-through, reduce split shipments, increase turnover speed, and improve their sustainability performance.

4/Reimagine delivery and the last mile As e-commerce continues to grow, retailers will increasingly become more imaginative about delivery, particularly in the context of the rising carbon emissions created by an extensive fleet of delivery vehicles.

Intriguing concepts are emerging. Some retailers are focusing on gig economy delivery services, or even setting up their own “mini gig economy” operations in-house with staff who make deliveries in their local areas.

Greener transport solutions are also an area

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of interest. Multi-tenant fulfillment hubs are popping up in underused urban spaces. And customers themselves can even be part of the solution if given the right incentives and if retailers can offer more convenient pick-up options.

5/ Partner up Retailers are embracing an ecosystem approach, working with a broader range of suppliers than ever before, and also thinking more creatively about what they might offer.

Partnerships span areas including ondemand warehousing and new options for transportation and last-mile delivery.

Technology providers also have a key role to play, developing specialist solutions such as order management systems and carrier management tools.

The goal is to exploit the expertise of niche players to secure new capabilities without the time and investment it takes to build solutions from scratch. Choosing the right partners is crucial — particularly given the growing visibility of the supply chain to customers — but retailers are open to a range of options. Some are even teaming up with other retailers for mutual benefit.

These five steps do not offer a one-time solution to omnichannel fulfillment. Retailers need to constantly revisit their approach, to optimize their networks and processes as new opportunities and challengers emerge.

But time is short. Consumers may have been prepared to forgive disappointments at the height of the pandemic when they recognized the general strain on brands and their workforces. But they are quick to lose sympathy. As the post-pandemic world grows nearer, leading retailers are on the charge. Meeting customer demand with local fulfillment is key.

— Jill Standish is the senior managing director for Accenture’s global retail consulting practice. Sean Whitehouse leads Accenture’s retail supply chain and store operations capability.

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STORE SPACES

Dick’s Sporting Goods Bets Big on Experiential Retail

By Marianne Wilson Dick’s Sporting Goods is running fast these days.

The nation’s largest sporting goods retailer has had a busy year so far, adding soccer shops to namesake locations, remodeling Golf Galaxy stores and opening clearance stores. But its most talked-about initiative has been the debut of an experiential retail concept more than two years in the making: Dick’s House of Sport.

The new banner debuted in April, at Eastview Mall, in the Rochester suburb of Victor, New York. The 100,000-sq.-ft. store — the company’s largest to date — offers customers a hands-on shopping experience.

It’s filled with multi-sports activities that customers can participate in, inside and out.

“House of Sport is based on four pillars — experience, service, community and product — that we have brought together under one roof,” Toni Roeller, senior VP of in-store environment & visual merchandising at Dick’s Sporting Goods, told Chain Store Age. Roeller acknowledged the ease and convenience of online ordering, noting that Dick’s offers customers great opportunities to do research and buy online. But there are times, she added, “when you want to get that bat in your hand and see how it feels and how it will improve your swing.”

A similar scenario plays out with golf clubs, cleats for soccer and other types of

sports equipment.

“You want the opportunity to try out the product, to touch and feel it and make sure it’s the right one for you,” Roeller said. “You also want a trusted advisor who can explain the differences between products. This is where brick and mortar continues to be so important for us. All of this went into the thinking behind House of Sport.”

The new concept was in the planning stages before the pandemic, its opening couldn’t be timelier as shoppers return to stores.

“Experience has never been more important for brick-and-mortar,” Roeller said.

“I think that will be one of the long-term impacts of the pandemic. We have to create an environment that is not just about convenience but also about engaging with a brand in way that makes us top of mind.”

The experiences at House Sport are designed to allow customers to have fun and connect with the brand and also to ensure they are buying the right product.

The store’s features include a 30-foot-tall rock-climbing wall, a high-tech batting cage, virtual golf-driving bays, a putting green and the retailer’s first-ever “House of Cleats,” which will seasonally rotate product, with up to 350 cleats across all sports.

One of the biggest — literally — attractions at House of Sport lies just outside the building — a 17,000-sq.-ft. outdoor turf

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field (with a regulation-size running track) where Dick’s hosts classes, clinics, sports camps, product trials and other events.

The field (part of which will convert to an ice-skating rink in the winter) is open yearround for customers.

“Nothing says sport like playing on a field,” Roeller said.

The outdoor area gives customers the opportunity to try out equipment before they buy it — something Dick’s encourages.

“You can go out on the field or track and try out running shoes or cleats, for example, and see what it feels like if you were actually engaged in the sport,” Roeller said.

Additional store features include a dedicated service area for breaking in gloves, stringing lacrosse sticks, repairing bikes and mre. A health and wellness area sells healthy snacks, vitamins and other wellness products along with juice from a local vendor. Classes are offered on a wide range of wellness and nutrition topics.

Other unique store elements include an elevated fitting room experience, complete with an adjacent seating area where friends and family can wait (and even charge their phones) and a space where store associates display their favorite new products, giving customers an easy way to see the “latest and greatest” products. A treadmill inside the continued on page 18 JULY/AUGUST 2021

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STORE SPACES continued from page 16

fitting-room bank gives female customers a convenient way to try out sports bras.

“A sports bra is a crucial piece of equipment for women,” Roeller explained. “The customer can hop on the treadmill to get a good idea of which bra will work most effectively for her.”

Second Location In early June, a second House of Sport opened, at West Town Mall in Knoxville, Tenn. At 100,000 sq. ft., it’s similar to the New York store with a few exceptions.

“The biggest difference between the two is the way customers navigate the space, ” explained Roeller. “The Knoxville store is a double-decker so it has a different traffic pattern than our first House of Sport. Also, the outdoor field in Knoxville is larger, at 24,000 sq. ft.”

As to which of the experiences at House of Sport are most popular, there is little doubt.

“Our fields are getting amazing play and being leveraged day in and day out,” Roeller said. “They provide an amazing opportunity for us to connect with our communities and give them a place to play. We leave balls and nets out.”

The indoor climbing wall is also very popular, in use from the moment the store opens until it closes. There is constant activity around the wall, Roeller added, from classes, which get filled up immediately, to by-appointment individual climbs.

Customers have also embraced the fitting bays in golf, where they have the opportunity to work with an expert on their swing, get tips and be fitted for new clubs. The batting cage is also popular.

Although House of Sport has only been open a couple of months, the immediate

The outdoor turf field and running track at House of Sport is among its most popular features.

Dick’s House of Sport offers a hands-on shopping experience. The store is filled with multi-sports activities, including a climbing wall and high-tech batting cage.

reaction has been encouraging.

“We see that people are making more frequent trips to, and spending more time in, these stores,” Roeller said. “They are voting with their dollars.”

Expansion Dick’s is using the two House of Sport locations for R&D to see which of the experiences and services can be scaled back and added into its existing store fleet. But it also sees the format as a viable concept going forward.

A third House of Sport will open next spring.

“We are evaluating the opportunities across key markets in the U.S. to help us understand the opportunity we have to expand this concept further,” Roeller said.

Dick’s has already started to leverage the elevated level of service it provides in House of Sport’s fitting rooms, testing it in some existing stores.

“We have dedicated individuals who work as personal stylists and consultants from a selling perspective,” Roeller said. “We’ve had a lot of early success with it.”

New Concept in the Wings Later this year, Dick’s will unveil yet another

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new concept, Public Lands, with a store in Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio. Dick’s executive chairman Edward Stack described it as a “complete outdoor omnichannel retail concept” on the company’s most recent earnings call and said conservation will play a prominent role in Public Lands.

The new banner is being headed up by Todd Spaletto, who previously spent three years at Wolverine Worldwide and 14 years at The North Face, including as global president from 2011 to 2017.

“We’ve been working on Public Lands for several years,” Stack told analysts. “Based on our research, we think there is an opportunity in the marketplace and believe this new concept will be a great growth vehicle for us.”

Roeller was mum on any details regarding Public Lands. But it’s clear that the concept fits into the retailer’s commitment to engaging with its customers in the physical space and its vision of retail.

“Giving customers a place to visit on a regular basis as part of the community…. and creating a place where they want to stay is the future of retail,” she said. “And that’s where we are going.”

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STORE SPACES

Lighting Products With Highest Rebates

LED high bay fixtures top the list at $120 per fixture

By Randy Young

As LED lighting continues to penetrate the market, people assume rebates for these products must be dwindling. In reality, commercial lighting rebates continue to be as strong as ever. While rebates for some upgrades, have decreased over the years, some product categories can still receive very significant incentives.

The dollar amounts typically relate to the potential energy savings, product cost and the complexity of installation and adoption levels in the marketplace. Since rebates exist to help utilities get their customers to save energy, the types of upgrades that would get the best rebates are pretty obvious: It’s the ones that result in high energy savings.

Looking through all the programs across North America, we’ve determined the four lighting products with the highest average rebate amounts.

High Bay Fixtures LED high bay fixtures have the highest average rebate across North America at $120 per fixture. It’s easy to understand the logic: These fixtures often replace HIDs and save anywhere from 40% to 60% in energy. Even when replacing more efficient T5HO and T8 options, users can still achieve measurable energy savings. Therefore, it makes sense that rebate programs incentivize these types of fixtures so highly.

Rebates for high bays can range depending on wattage or lumen output, but don’t usually vary based on the type (i.e., a linear fixture and a round/UFO fixture would have a similar rebate if they’re similar wattage/lumens).

Pole Lights Similar to LED high bays, LED pole lights offer huge energy-saving potential and,

therefore, can receive high rebates as well.

The average incentive for an LED Pole Light is $97 per fixture. While screw-in mogul-base upgrades are also an option, the rebates for those are considerably less, only $53 per lamp. There are two DLC categories for pole lights: “Area and Roadway” and “Decorative.” Very few rebate programs distinguish between the two, so customers can go as traditional or creative as they want when choosing an LED option. Make sure to check the program you’re planning to use; some utilities only incentivize daytime peak demand reduction, meaning exterior lighting is ineligible.

Similar to LED high bays, LED pole lights offer huge energy-saving potential and, therefore, can receive high rebates as well.

The average incentive for an LED Pole Light is $97 per fixture. While screw-in mogulbase upgrades are also an option, the rebates for those are considerably less, only $53 per lamp. There are two DLC categories for pole lights: “Area and Roadway” and “Decorative.” Very few rebate programs distinguish between the two, so customers can go as traditional or creative as they want when choosing an LED option. Make sure to check the program you’re planning to use; some utilities only incentivize daytime peak demand reduction, meaning exterior lighting is ineligible.

Parking Garage Lighting Parking garage fixtures are a no-brainer when it comes to incentives. The lighting operates 24/7 in many cases, making it an excellent opportunity for savings, and therefore rebates. In addition, these facilities traditionally have HID or Fluorescent solutions. The average rebate for parking garage fixtures across North America is $94 per fixture.

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Wall-mounted Outdoor Fixtures Most commercial buildings in the U.S. have wall-mounted light fixtures around the perimeter, making them a great target from a rebate perspective. The existing fixtures are typically HID and operate around 4,100 hours a year on average. By switching to LED, users can save a lot in this type of application. Because of this potential, the average incentive for LED wall-mounted fixtures is $91 per fixture.

Exterior lighting has been one of the segments to adopt LED lighting quickly, but there are still many potential projects.

According to the most recent DOE estimate, only 45.8% of exterior lighting has upgraded to LED so far.

The above rebate amounts are the average across North America, but the actual rebate you will see can vary. Even a single utility can have various rebate amounts for one fixture type depending on its wattage or lumens.

• Controls: On their own, lighting controls don’t make the list of top rebate eligible lighting products, but combining these products with any of the fixtures above would result in even higher amounts.

Sometimes the additional incentive is a fixed dollar amount.

In other cases, it’s based on how many watts the sensor or timer controls. In addition, luminaire level lighting controls (LLLC) and networked lighting controls can potentially earn even more, sometimes up to double.

— Ryan Young is marketing and operations manager for BriteSwitch, which specializes in finding and capturing local, utility, state and federal rebates and incentives for installing energy-energy equipment such as LED lighting, HVAC systems and more.

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STORE SPACES

Lowering Energy Costs Chain Wide Predictive analytics, automation and AI can lower energy costs across the portfolio

By Gavin Platt Retail buildings spend more than $20 billion on energy annually, according to an EnergyStar.gov report detailing efficiencies, impacts and trends. Heating, cooling and lighting are the highest areas of retail energy consumption, and with each year over the past decade a record-breaker for extreme weather, these outlays will only increase.

Harnessing automation and artificial intelligence technology could reduce these costs by at least $3 billion. Many of the largest retailers are adding energy generation and committing to sustainability goals to further reduce costs. Predictive modeling is critical to managing what can be an overwhelming data stream, incorporating recent and historical data to predict unique outcomes in a commercial building.

Managing the Utility Footprint While a majority of the stores in a chain’s portfolio are generally similar in size, design and layout, each site’s energy usage pattern is unique. Managing the utility footprint across a chain’s building ecosystem means weighing evolving factors affecting each store – the local climate, equipment needs, pop-up kiosks, customer and employee activity, EV charging stations on site and more.

Identifying how energy is used throughout a commercial building traditionally has meant setting up a multitude of devices to measure and assess, requiring building managers to physically check and compile data from these devices.

Conducting audits, reading meters and manually entering data is error-prone and strains already time- and budget-pressured teams. Integrating a custom data-generating sensor array and a baseline statistical model of energy use is a first step, especially in light of the past year’s uncharacteristic in-store vacancy patterns for most retailers.

Energy management software can reduce costs and errors and automate many building management tasks. According to a report

by Transforma Insights, it’s not too early to start. By 2030, IoT deployment is expected

to save more than eight times the energy it consumes, “resulting in net savings of 230 billion cubic meters of water and eliminating one gigaton of CO2 emissions.”

Every aspect of the store – HVAC systems, lighting, inventory, signage, shelves and terminals – can be woven into a data communications network, giving managers a holistic picture of energy use and activity throughout the entire chain’s portfolio. With automation taking on routine tasks and identifying problems, facility managers can instead focus their expertise on more productive areas, such as enabling collaboration across teams and overseeing projects.

With automation taking on routine tasks and identifying problems, facility managers can instead focus their expertise on more productive areas, such as enabling collaboration across teams and overseeing projects.

Establishing a normal-use pattern allows managers to create a benchmark for comparison, determine what is expected, learn as new data is fed into the loop, and react to deviations.

Managers can also integrate weather system information and adjust actions (heating, cooling, lighting, ventilation), to seasonal variations and sudden abnormal weather changes.

Predictive analytics also anticipate and manage the lifecycle costs of equipment, a large expense to any commercial enterprise.

Setting automated protocols to reduce lighting or the amount of time that a heating or cooling system is operating, or to turn off malfunctioning equipment, will add up to significant cost savings over the life of the equipment. Predictive modeling also alerts managers to set demand shedding protocols to prevent the failure of the entire system

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when demand outpaces energy capacity.

Integrated Data Network An integrated data network can promote a multitude of savings across a store site: • Sensors that detect when rooms are unoccupied can safely conduct ultraviolet light sanitation; • Electronic displays, often left on when stores are closed, can be automated for off-hour shutdowns; • Other electronics (computers, printers, coffee makers, vending machines, etc.) that are generally left plugged in even when no one is on-site can have power diverted; • Freezer malfunctions can be identified immediately, saving products and money; and • Employees can be alerted to excessive hotwater usage, triggering awareness of waste and expense.

Even stores that are rated highly for energy use are at risk of anomalous situations that reduce their efficiency, either through fluctuating occupancy, severe weather or overlooked system changes. Predictive modeling learns from real-time data and recognizes these changes, automatically adjusting systems. This model becomes an essential part of the manager’s arsenal for monitoring and predicting energy consumption throughout a store space.

As building managers are tasked with corporate sustainability mandates for zero waste, reducing carbon emissions and lowering costs, predictive modeling software that benchmarks and continuously learns offers ease and efficiency.

With a unified view of all commercial assets, managers can understand operating trends and asset conditions, analyze the total cost of buildings, anticipate and plan for equipment upgrades, and make real-time procurement decisions. Commercial building managers have powerful tools to help them in their roles of meeting sustainability standards and protecting a chain’s portfolio of structural assets.

— Gavin Platt is VP, product, at Acuity Brands.

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STORE SPACES

Operating Smarter Price Chopper/Market 32 has completed an energy efficiency project that improved its environmental impact and change to cut its costs by $2 million annually Facing increased strain on its supermarket infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Northeast grocer was looking to to improve its environmental impact, lower energy costs and update existing systems across five Connecticut locations. The chain partnered with Fairbanks Energy Service, a division of Mantis Innovation, to design a “threemeasure” project for five stores based around HVAC, refrigeration, and LED lighting improvements.

The upgrades are estimated to save Price Chopper/Market 32 more than 5,436,400 kWh and 47,900 therms annually – the financial equivalent of $2,198,000. In another plus, 75% of the project cost was covered by Eversource

Connecticut by utility incentives.

The retrofitted stores feature modern LED lighting with occupancy sensors and controls, high-efficiency evaporator fan motors, rooftop unit demand control ventilation and fan staging controls. The solutions will lower the stores’ energy usage, ultimately reducing environThe upgrade included new LED lighting with occupancy sensors. mental impact while improving aesthetics, comfort, facility control and to reinvest money we would be spending on system output. energy as early as next year.”

“We are proud to choose a project that Based in Schenectady, N.Y., Price Chopper/ addresses our sustainability goals while also Market 32 operate 131 supermarkets in New lowering costs,” said Frank Blake, director York, Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, of facilities maintenance & energy at Price Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Chopper/Market 32. “ In February, the supermarket operator Blake added that Fairbanks’ knowledge and Tops Markets entered into a merger of Connecticut utility programs allowed agreement, with the combined company to the retailer to save significantly on several have approximately 300 locations throughimportant upgrades, and now “we’re able out the Northeast.

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Green From the Ground Up Popeyes continues its expansion in Canada with a location that was built in record time and with near-zero construction waste.

Scheduled to open by fall, the new Popeyes in Abbotsford, British Columbia. , is the brand’s first location that was built via a process that marries sustainability with speed of delivery. It was constructed in less than two weeks by green construction technology company Nexii Building Solutions Inc. Nexii’s green building products are manufactured in plants to project specifications using 3D software. The process allows the panels to fit together like jigsaw pieces when assembled onsite, accelerating standard build times from 50% to 75% (versus the historical time required to build a standalone restaurant of similar size in Canada), the company said.

The process also results in the elimination of almost all onsite construction waste.

Nexii said its panels are made of a proprietary material that is more thermally efficient

and less carbon-intensive than concrete.

When assembled, they create an airtight building envelope that improves energy efficiency and, in turn, lowers the greenhouse gas emissions for ongoing building operation. The operational building carbon emissions from the new Popeyes is expected to be 30% lower than a traditionally constructed restaurant.

“As a company, we are committed to

building the most loved restaurant brands in the world, and reducing our environmental impact while doing so,” said Robert Manuel, general manager for Popeyes in Canada. “This is just one of many steps we’re taking as a brand to positively affect climate change, and we’re looking forward to continuing this important sustainability journey with our restaurants.”

Popeyes is owned by Restaurant Brands International, whose other brands include Burger King and Tim Hortons, for a total of more than 27,000 quick-service restaurants in over 100 countries.

The new Popeyes was constructed with building materials that reduce climate pollution by about 30%.

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STORE SPACES

A Store Transformed Dramatic remodel revitalizes Bed, Bath & Beyond flagship

By Marianne Wilson

It’s all about the experience at Bed Bath & Beyond’s reimagined New York City flagship.

Under renovation since last December, the two-level, 92,000-sq.-ft. store, in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, has been completely transformed. The store is the largest in the chain’s portfolio.

Gone are the outdated fixtures, cramped spaces and dizzying disarray of merchandise stacked so high it resulted in what Bed Bath & Beyond called ‘shopping paralysis.’ The revamped store has a modern look, open floor plan and vastly improved sightlines.

Most important, it’s easy to shop.

The improvements include lower shelves, wider aisles, bold signage, better adjacencies

and neatly arranged product (and less of it — the number of SKUs has been reduced by about 40%).

New floor-to-ceiling windows flood the space with natural light. The checkout experience has been updated with the addition of 14 self-checkout stations.

“Before our remodel, we conducted a self-checkout pilot that revealed 70% of the store’s shoppers preferred to use the technology,” said Gregg Melnick, executive VP, chief stores officer, Bed Bath & Beyond, during a tour prior to the flagship reopening. “We quickly pivoted and expanded the self-checkout experience.”

There are more than 20 “merchandising experiences” throughout the space,

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which is organized by rooms. Bed Bath & Beyond’s private brands, which are crucial to the chain’s turnaround effort, are prominently displayed, many with their own fixtures and signage.

The retailer also partnered with several leading national brands for unique and immersive experiences, including an in-store shop dedicated to Casper. It’s the popular sleep company’s first-ever branded shop-in-shop.

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and personalize SodaStream bottles. On-site mixologists provide customers with drink ideas and demonstrate how to use the device.

“This is another way for us to offer a product experience that is unique and exclusive,” added Melnick.

The flagship also makes an effort to eliminate the guesswork often associated with buying household essentials by offering in-store trials that allow customers to try before they buy. In the health and beauty section, for example, customers can hold and turn on various electric devices, from hair dryers to electric razors. Integrated digital display screens enable users to learn more about the brands and merchandise functionality.

Similarly, the home care section features an area where shoppers can try out vacuums and see how various models perform on different types of typical household dirt.

“It is hard to shop for a vacuum, and it can be an expensive purchase,” said Joe Hartsig, executive VP and chief merchandising officer, Bed Bath & Beyond, and president of Harmon Stores. “We wanted to create a solution to help shoppers try-before-they-buy and pick the right device — something you can’t do online. This [experience] shows the power of brick-and-mortar retail.”

Omnichannel: The flagship blends digital experiences with physical retail. Bed Bath & Beyond’s updated mobile app empowers customers to better navigate the store. The app’s “in-store shopping” mode enables users to create registries and scan the QR codes on products to learn more about the item and shop additional colors, sizes and products. An augmented reality option lets users scan the furniture or a decor item and digitally visualize it in their home.

Shoppers can also take advantage of the retailer’s new “scan and buy” feature, which enables them to digitally pay for purchases as they shop and bypass the check-out line.

The store has a dedicated area for online order pick-up — or customers can choose to have employees meet them outside for curbside pickup. All orders are ready within one hour of purchase.

In line with the retailer’s environmental goals, the renovated space utilizes energy efficient measures to help reduce its overall carbon footprint. The measures include replacing fluorescent lights with LED lights, installing occupancy sensors and timers for lighting and upgrades in energy-efficient HVAC, and fans for temperature control.

The flagship’s branded experiences include a SodaStream “Bubble Bar.

Customers can try out the vacuums on display in the home care department.

More Remodels To Come Bed Bath & Beyond’s renovated flagship is part of the home goods retailer’s $250 million, three-year project to update 450 stores in line with its overall transformation strategy. The company plans to modernize about 150 stores annually. Elements from the flagship will be incorporated into the updated stores.

“A key component of our plan is modernizing our stores to significantly elevate in-store shopping experiences while optimizing their role in our digital-first, omni-always approach to help customers unlock the magic in every room of their homes,” stated Bed Bath & Beyond president and CEO Mark Tritton.

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Bed Bath & Beyond’s private brands are prominently displayed throughout the space.

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SHOP TALK

Bloomingdale’s

Trending Stores: Bloomingdale’s is set to open a smaller-store

concept under its iconic “Bloomie’s” nickname in late August at the Mosaic District shopping center in Fairfax, Virginia. The 22,000-sq.-ft. store (by comparison, Bloomingdale’s department stores generally average 150,000 sq. ft. to 250,000 sq. ft.), will combine top designers and emerging brands with a tech-enabled service model. The curated merchandise assortment features men’s and women’s apparel, shoes, handbags, beauty, eyewear and fine jewelry. The new concept puts service and convenience front and center. A dedicated area, “The Front Desk,” will house a returns drop box (for items bought from any

1,150 SHELVING CHOICES IN STO

π

Bloomingdale’s channel) and will also serve as the central point for online order pickup. Other service offerings will include curbside pickup, customization, alterations and appointments with stylists. The sales associates, who have been trained to act as stylists, are equipped with digital selling capabilities, allowing them to access merchandise for customers from all of Bloomingdale’s. stores. Bloomie’s was designed in partnership with Nelson Worldwide. … Glossier is doubling down on its direct-to-consumer model as it prepares to reenter — and expand in — brick-and-mortar retail. The digitally native beauty brand is opening three stores, starting in Seattle in August, followed by Los Angeles and London later this year, with more to come in the future. Glossier previously had two stores — in New York City and Los Angeles — that it permanently closed at the beginning of the pandemic. … Abercrombie & Fitch unveiled a new stand-alone prototype for its Gilly Hicks intimates brand. The store, at Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, is the brand’s only current freestanding location. Its debut comes as Gilly Hicks, a Gen Z favorite, has shifted to a more “gender-inclusive” positioning, with an expanded assortment and product that is merchandised by fabric and end-use rather than separated by gender. … Customers can get up close and personal with the latest Google devices and services at the tech giant’s first-ever physical store. Located on the ground floor of the tech giant’s vast New York headquarters in Manhattan, the 5,000-sq.-ft. Google Store has an Apple Store-like vibe and invites hands-on interaction with the company’s services — from Google Search to Google Maps and more — and growing lineup of devices, including Pixel phones, Nest products and more. A help desk offers support for Google devices, from fixing a cracked Pixel screen to assisting with installations.

Google Store

Company Updates: Retail design veteran Christian Da-

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vies joined Bergmeyer as design practice leader, effective in April. Prior to Bergmeyer, Davies served as managing director of the creative marketing group at Verizon, creative VP of global design and innovation for Starbucks, executive creative director of the Americas at Fitch, and VP/managing creative director at FRCH Design Worldwide.

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STORE SPACES Q & A

Ceiling Restoration: From Old to New New isn’t always better — at least not when it comes to dealing with a dirty acoustical ceiling.

Resurfacing existing ceiling tiles with a specialty acoustical coating process is less expensive than replacing ceiling tiles and painting the grids and can result in a better than brand-new appearance, according to Lisa Schwartz, president, ProCoat Products, a pioneer of acoustical ceiling restoration. Chain Store Age spoke with Schwartz about the advantages of this process.

What trends are you seeing in store refreshes and remodels?

We’re seeing several trends, with “clean and bright” at the top of the list. Commercial spaces need to present a safe and healthy environment vibe. Stained ceilings and soot around air diffusers don’t support that message.

Also, we are seeing lots of custom colors being specified on ceilings. And although not a trend, performing all scopes of work quickly and cost effectively is always a top priority.

What’s the biggest mistake retailers make when updating and remodeling their interiors?

The biggest mistake we see is that clients will often choose the band-aid option to save money in the short term, but end up spending more in the long term. Evaluating the life cycle can lead you to a different choice, one that is more fiscally responsible.

Clients often make the mistake of replacing a small percentage of only the worst looking ceiling tiles. The net effect is a ceiling with that ugly “checkboard” look of mismatched styles and shades of tiles, all aging at different stages.

Spending an incremental amount more to restore the entire ceiling system will renew it and give it another 15 years of life.

You can’t imagine how many times we get emergency calls because during a C-level store walk they want to know why $450,000 was spent on a remodel only to leave an unattractive looking ceiling.

ProCoat Products specializes in acoustical ceiling restoration. What exactly is ceiling restoration?

If you have a wall that is marred and dirty CHAINSTOREAGE.COM

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looking, you wouldn’t tear it all down and put up a new wall, but that’s often what is done with acoustical ceilings.

Conversely, ceiling restoration is a specialty acoustical coating process that resurfaces the existing ceiling tiles, grids, speaker plates and air diffusers to make them all a consistent bright white or custom color. It is installed by ProCoat’s trained crews, who fully encapsulate the space and work overnight with little to no disruption to operations.

How does the ProCoat product differ from regular latex paint?

Our premium coating, ProCoustic, is very similar to what tile manufacturers apply to tile during the manufacturing process, except better. The ProCoustic in our standard white is whiter and brighter than a latex paint (as well as a new tile), and improves the Fire Rating and Acoustical properties.

ProCoustic will not cause the tile to stick to the grids and ProCoated tiles can be recycled, whereas tiles with latex paint cannot.

ProCoat does not fill in the fissures (holes) of ceiling tiles, thus maintaining acoustical properties. It looks completely natural, unlike a painted tile that has a shiny look to it.

Also, most commercial property owners and developers prohibit tenants from painting ceiling tiles due to the negative effect on the Fire Rating, but they will approve ProCoat.

How does restoration compare costand time-wise to replacing the tile?

ProCoat is generally half the cost and completed in one-third the time compared to replacing ceiling tiles and painting the grids.

How does the appearance of a restored ceiling compare to a new one?

This is one of those rare times that new isn’t

better. Independent Laboratory Testing showed a tile sprayed with ProCoustic was about 9% whiter than new tile out of the box. Even better, it will hold that whiteness longer over time.

Are there any other advantages?

Absolutely! Ceiling restoration is a very sustainable solution. Due to the increase in light reflectance, clients can frequently achieve the same illumination using less artificial lighting, thus saving energy.

Plus, resurfacing the existing tiles diverts them from landfills. Since inception, ProCoat has prevented half a billion square feet of tile from going into landfills.

How important is ceiling appearance to the overall store environment?

While you may not notice the clean white ceiling immediately, the bright environment is hard to miss. People will come in the next day and say “Wow, who turned up the lights? With an aging population and customers with a heightened sensitivity to cleanliness, a bright ceiling speaks volumes. And a dirty, stained, dark ceiling sends the message that the space may not be clean.

What other surfaces can ProCoat be applied to besides acoustic tile?

Our ProCoustic product can be used on all types of ceilings, including open deck, drywall and metal, etc. We also have ProVinyl System for washable ceiling tiles and FRP (fiberglass reinforced plastic) walls. And our ProBond product can be used to rebrand or resurface store fixtures, refrigerator/freezer cases, restroom partitions, metal doors and any type of substrate where traditional paint tends to scrape off.

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ON THE LEVEL

Developer Diaries

NYSE: RPAI | rpai.com

COMING SOON

EVO Entertainment Southlake Town Square Southlake, TX

My favorite part of putting together the Top 10 list is talking with leading retail real estate developers. It’s like interviewing a 28-year-old Olympic sprinter and learning he’s been competing since he was 8.

Like swimmer Kate Ledecky and gymnast Simone Biles, they’re in for the long haul and want to keep winning. In real estate that takes time, money, vision, partnering, and passion.

When I asked Georgetown Company CEO Adam Flatto what the key ingredient was that made Easton Town Center continue to set the standard for customer experience, he unhesitatingly named Les Wexner, the founder of L Brands and the conceptual force behind this year’s No. 1 retail experience.

“When everyone was building malls, it was Les who understood that you needed replicable specialty retailers to fill the gap in between the anchors, and he created concepts that were scalable,” Flatto said.

“Having been so committed and anchored to that format, he had the foresight to push the industry to change, even at his own peril. He had every opportunity to do something other than what we did at Easton, but we did it.”

Steiner + Associates CEO Yaromir Steiner was a Turkish native educated in France who moved to Florida and got involved in open-air and mixed-use projects there. He thought they could work, too, in Columbus and pitched Wexner some ideas about using them to develop his land in Columbus.

“When I came to town and proposed my ideas, it was like, who’s this guy with the foreign accent who wants to build this

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center and not a mall?” Steiner said. “It took someone with some creativity and vision to believe it could work, and all those years ago Les was convinced the concept was good.”

Having spent a life chasing news and deadlines, I’ve always focused on “What’s happening now?” So I hold a special appreciation for the courage and patience of developers who are forced to envision a piece of land’s promise 10 or 20 years hence. Peterson Companies founder Milt Peterson was one of those guys, according to the concern’s president of retail, Paul Weinschenk.

“Milt loved land and, if he found a piece of land he really loved, he was willing to buy it and carry it,” said Weinschenk, one of whose two properties on the Top 10 list, National Harbor, was a parcel Milt took two decades to cultivate.

“There were three things that intersected for him in real estate that really appealed to him,” Weinschenk continued. “It has the ability to change the world. It’s high-risk, but you could turn nothing into something. And he liked the ability to make money while doing it.”

One new placer on the Top 10 is a rookie. Joe Faro took a chance on the former Rockingham Park racetrack property north of Boston when no big developers were interested and looks to be hitting it big with his first venture. With Phase 3 still yet to open, crowds have made his Tuscan Village New Hampshire’s favorite new hangout. Faro said he learned early that, today, you have to make your center relevant all day, every day.

“If you can get that traffic during the week, that’s the big thing. It’s the difference between average sales and exceptional sales,” Faro said. “Today’s retailer is trying to create revenue in smaller spaces, and the way to do that is to drive revenue in the off days.”

Al Urbanski aurbanski@chainstoreage.com @AlUrbanski (Twitter)

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development lifestyle grocer mixed-use

THE BEST IN RETAIL FROM EVERY ANGLE

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REAL ESTATE

TOP 10 RETAIL CENTER

EXPERIENCES

2021

• EASTON TOWN CENTER • AMERICAN DREAM • GALLERIA DALLAS • TUSCAN VILLAGE • NATIONAL HARBOR

• LA CENTERRA AT CINCO RANCH • DOWNTOWN SILVER SPRING • AVALON • MELLODY FARM • CROCKER PARK

Chain Store Age picks physical retail’s most engaging spots.

By Al Urbanski

1

EASTON TOWN CENTER

Columbus, Ohio

More than 30 million people visit it each year and spend more than a billion dollars there. It offers 50-plus food and beverage options. Stroll through the massive development in Columbus and one out of every seven people you pass travelled more than 100 miles to be there.

And if that’s not enough to demonstrate that Easton Town Center continued to provide America’s best retail center experience during a pandemic-plagued year, consider that it signed leases with 10 new tenants and opened a 16-acre, $500 million New District in early 2021.

Yaromir Steiner, the CEO of Steiner + Associates, which manages Easton, said that March and April sales at the center ran 5% to 8% higher than they were in 2019. And that was still a time when its AMC 30 cinema, one of the most successful in the nation, remained closed.

“The New District has performed way beyond my expectations,” said Steiner of the art-bedecked urban precinct which houses an RH Gallery Store, an Arhaus, Class-A office buildings, a Pins bowling alley, and food and beverage options such as the Forbidden Root Brew Pub. “It’s rare when an extension of a project becomes more powerful than the rest of the development,” he said. “It’s a game-changer.”

Steiner, who 22 years ago helped design the project developed by L Brands founder Lex Wexner and The Georgetown Company, feels that the pandemic proved as a curative for the continued health of Easton Town Center. (Easton was No. 1 in 2019.)

“For the first time, we had an 8% vacancy rate. It’s usually only 32

2%,” he said. “It allowed us to move some tenants around and make some bigger decisions.”

The pandemic shined a spotlight on the true nature of Easton, holds Georgetown CEO Adam Flatto.

“We’re not a shopping destination, we’re a social destination,” he said. “That allowed us to continue to be relevant during the pandemic and, afterwards, to drive traffic quickly back to what it was before the pandemic.”

Flatto maintains that it was Wexner--the operator of The Limited and Victoria’s Secret who helped fill concourses at malls--who two decades ago conjured the vision that is now dominating the thinking of retailers and center builders. Wexner owned the huge parcel of land on which Easton resides and had thought about building a distribution center on it before he sensed a shift in the winds of retail.

“At an ICSC convention back in the Nineties, Les put his money where his mouth was and stuck his neck out,” said Flatto. “He gave a speech in which he said that the future of department stores was bleak and that a change needed to be made. Everyone thought he was crazy.”

Wexner said developers had to give consumers reasons to come to their centers that went beyond shopping, and he broke ground at Easton to show them what. Flatto states that Easton has never abandoned that mission.

“We still have hundreds of acres of land there,” he said. “Every field and every parking lot is a site waiting to be developed.”

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Extraordinary. Visionary. Revolutionary.

NOW OPEN Aloft Columbus Easton • Boss Gal Beauty Bar • Brassica • Buff City Soap • Crimson • Ivan Kane’s Forty-Deuce LemonShark Poké & Makai Grill • Nike • Pins Mechanical • RH Columbus: The Gallery at Easton Town Center Slurping Turtle • Sono Wood Fired Pizza • True Food Kitchen • UpWest • Urban Outfitters

COMING SOON AERIE • Afra Grill • Another Broken Egg • Aritzia • Capital One Café • Doc Martens • Levi’s

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REAL ESTATE

2

AMERICAN DREAM

The Meadowlands, New Jersey

Don Ghermezian’s decade-long crusade to re-mold Mills Corp.’s multicolored Xanadu project in the Jersey Meadowlands into the sparkling white theme park and retail realm called American Dream was not what could be called a great experience. After weathering construction delays, financial issues—even a debt restructuring of Mall of America, which the Ghermezian family’s Triple 5 posted as collateral on American Dream’s mortgage—the 3 million sq. ft. mega-center finally opened in the fall of 2019.

Just in time to get shut down by the first global pandemic in 100 years.

The experience of the thousands of visitors packing American Dream, however, has been much more positive. While they’re currently more locally sourced than Ghermezian had planned, they still buy out his Dreamworks water park with the biggest wave pool in the U.S., his Nickelodeon theme park with the steepest coaster descent, and his Big Snow ski lodge, America’s first indoor ski slope.

A few months after Dreamworks opened, more rides had to be added to keep the lines moving.

“To be perfectly candid, we’re selling out and we’re at about 25% of what our potential is,” said Ghermezian. “We have just 11 entertainment concepts open. When we’re complete, we will have 23 different entertainment concepts. We just signed a 45,000 square-foot lease with Hasbro, which will be putting its first full-scale entertainment center in American Dream.”

Two other very important components of the American Dream concept have been missing as well—a white-tablecloth restaurant wing and the luxury retail center. An opening has been scheduled for the latter on Sept. 30, with Hermès, Saint Laurent, Tiffany & Co., and Saks Fifth Avenue debuting at the Meadowlands.

Ghermezian says six or seven restaurants should be open by October, led by Carpaccio in September. Plus, 70 yet-to-arrive new tenants are under contract in different sectors of the center.

“We’re doing this all without international tourism. A lot of the business is coming in from New York, but more is from Jersey, within a 50-mile radius,” he said. “When all of these ideas become reality, they all will be pushing traffic into retail.”

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GALLERIA DALLAS

Dallas, Texas

Alright, let’s get right down to the nitty-gritty of this retail experience shenanigans, shall we? What is the retail experience that most people demand be just right? Emotional, even. Memorable. Colorful.

Joyful. (Gettin’ it yet?) Merry?

Christmas, of course. Give families dusty decorations they’ve seen for years, crackly carols on PA systems, skinny Santas with droopy fake beards, and they will abandon you as fast as Simon handed Atlanta’s Town Center at Cobb mall back to the bank this year. And one thing the Galleria Dallas mall intends to do—no matter what the world throws in its way—is give its loyal customers the best darned Christmas south of the North Pole.

“We have a 95-foot-tall Christmas tree that we place in the middle of our skating rink. It has 450,000 lights, 12,000 ornaments. A team of 80 people work five days to put it up, and more people skate around it than skate around the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center,” said Chuck Steelman, VP of experience, programming, and partnerships for Trademark, the Texas-based developer that owner UBS Realty investors hired in 2018 to renovate and manage one of Dallas’s most beloved malls.

2020’s pandemic-primed “Snow Day Dallas” was comprised of 12 holiday-themed scenes. Guests were given bracelets to activate photos of their poses. Kids entering the premises were handed Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer face masks to help engage them in the Christmas spirit. The event ran for five weeks and drew 16,000 visitors from 770 Zip Codes.

Respectfully honoring the stature of the Galleria Dallas Christmas tree was just one perfunctory duty the Trademark team performed to help restore the reputation of this long-hallowed public place. It also set off on a full-scale, 21st Century class-up of the mall built in 1982.

Among the enhancements: • Hand-cut Italian marble and wood to refurbish the mall whose architectural design was inspired by Galleria Emanuele II, Italy’s oldest active shopping center.

• Partnered with Fashion Group of Dallas on a gallery wall in which 60 designers and celebrities—including fashion designer Lela Rose, Dallas Cowboy Troy Aikman, and actress Angie Harmon— produced one-of-a-kind face masks that were auctioned off.

• On Juneteenth weekend, a Black Fashion Movement pop-up shop featured 13 black-owned brands from across the U.S. and four Dallas-based companies that included Aisha McShaw, Serita Jakes Home, Kendall Miles, and Keva J Swim.

“We really approached the pandemic as an opportunity to innovate,” Steelman said. “We found we were able to pivot a lot of traditional events even when events weren’t happening.”

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REAL ESTATE

5 4 TUSCAN VILLAGE

Salem, New Hampshire

Seabiscuit ran at Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H. in the Thirties.

The track just 30 miles north of Boston was then called “the finest racecourse in the world.” When it closed in 2009, Salem formed a committee to find an interested party to develop the 170-plus-acre site. It failed to.

That’s when a member of the committee named Joe Faro, a successful Salem restaurateur and manufacturer of fine Italian foods, decided to take a gamble bigger than any ever wagered at Rockingham Park. He arranged financing to acquire the parcel of land and hired former Easton Town Center leasing director Mike Powers.

Together they disassembled Rockingham and created, essentially, a new town off of I-93 in Salem.

With its second phase opened last year, Tuscan Village has 600 residential units, a Market Basket supermarket, a lake, and the beginnings of an expansive retail district that includes L.L. Bean, William Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and Arhaus. Though much more is yet to come, Tuscan Village has already become the haunt of thousands of people in the Boston Metro.

“The complex looks to be less than half completed, but already it’s a hopping place,” said a story in the Manchester Union Leader. “The Saturday night we were there, the place was packed.”

“This really has really been a collaboration between our team and the town of Salem,” Faro said. “We all saw the site as something special. Governor [Christopher] Sununu calls Tuscan Village ‘the gateway to New Hampshire.’”

Powers claims that store sales have soared significantly higher than tenants expected because of the high volumes of traffic descending on Tuscan Village.

“Smuttynose—a well-established beer brand in this state—has a very popular beer garden near the lake and the state allowed us an extended service area for alcohol. Guests can wander with their drinks from place to place,” noted Powers.

Still to come at Tuscan Village are the build-out of 700,000 sq. ft. of retail, a Mass General Brigham Medical Campus, a Marriott Autograph hotel, and 700 more residential units. People escaping Boston during the pandemic quickly snapped up all the apartments originally planned, leading Faro to build more.

No kids or grandkids of the denizens of Rockingham Park will be betting at the grand old track, but many will be living on it.

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NATIONAL HARBOR

Washington, D.C.

“You say National Harbor and I say, ‘Milt Peterson,’ said Paul Weinschenk. “He loved land. He thought different pieces of land had different personalities, and he thought of National Harbor like Marilyn Monroe.”

Milt Peterson was the founder of Peterson Companies, which owns and operates National Harbor. Weinschenk, the company’s president of retail, said that Peterson knew that there was something special about this mile and a half of land on the Potomac River, so he bought it—and then spent a couple of decades figuring out what to do with it.

What he did was something special. National Harbor is home to 160 stores, 40 restaurants, 2,500 residents, and the Capital Wheel—180-foot-high observation wheel offering views of the nation’s capital, Maryland, and Virginia. Its Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center is the East Coast’s largest non-gaming hotel and convention center. Two years ago, Topgolf arrived. Because its population is largely transient, full of conventioneers and tourists, its retail mix ranges from essential to luxurious to outlet. Yes, Tanger has a center in National Harbor.

“It’s a complicated customer mix,” said Weinschenk. “You’ve got tourists from all over the world who’ll visit the outlets, conventioneers out for expense account dinners, local residents who need groceries and prescriptions filled. So you have to have everything.”

Everything, to Milt Peterson, included art. He thought art played a important role in real estate developments, and National Harbor has commissioned more than 30 pieces of outdoor artwork that visitors can tour using apps on their cell phones. Estimated to be worth more than $10 million, the collection’s most popular piece is “The Awakening,” J. Seward Johnson’s 72-foot-wide sculpture of a giant emerging from the earth.

One unusual amenity that National Harbor presents to its visitors, Weinschenk noted, is access to the Potomac River. He said that riverside gathering spots in D.C. are rare, but the Harbor’s Waterfront District gets guests toes wet with pedal boats, kayaks, paddle boards, and CraigCats.

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REAL ESTATE

7

6 LA CENTERRA AT CINCO RANCH

Katy, Texas

In the Houston suburb of Katy, packed with lots of people and lots of retail, La Centerra is an outdoor center with incredible space, a wide variety of stores and restaurants, a public park, and a clock tower that guides guests to the site from as far as 10 miles away. ”There’s a great mixture of uses at La Centerra, and a lot of open spaces,” said Josh Poag, CEO of Poag Shopping Centers, which acquired La Centerra in 2017. “During the pandemic, all of the restaurants got quickly engaged in doing takeout orders. People were lined up. Outdoor yoga classes went ahead with people spaced 10 feet apart. It was business as usual.”

La Centerra’s 400,000-plus sq. ft. of GLA holds a cast of tenants that appeal to consumers across all income levels and age groups. Two dozen food and beverage stops range from Bar Louie to Starbuck’s, Perry’s Steakhouse to Baker St. Pub & Grill, and Ambrizia Social Mexican Kitchen to Torchy’s Tacos.

The retail roster runs across the board and counts Kendra Scott, LensCrafters, Peloton, Image Orthodontics, Edward James, Jos. A. Bank, Music & Arts Center, SportClips, Trader Joe’s, and Sephora.

But La Centerra’s Central Green ends up being one of the biggest traffic builders at the property. It’s within walking distance of the town of Katy’s schools, library, and theaters and hosts 200-plus events a year that include live music, group workouts, and movie nights. The center is also home to the Art Museum TX, a public outlet for local artists.

“La Centerra has a great relationship with the community. We program a lot of events and the city brings in a lot of events, too,” Poag said. “It’s upper-middle-income retail, entertainment and dining, and it works really well.”

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DOWNTOWN SILVER SPRING

Silver Spring, Maryland

Can a retail center be so successful at reinvigorating a town that, 20 years after it first opened, it has to remake itself to catch up with what it accomplished?

That is the unique story of Peterson Companies and Silver Spring, Md. The popular Washington, D.C., suburb had gone through a bad patch in the 70s and 80s. Its downtown had become run-down. A mall was suggested, but town leaders rejected it.

“They wanted the grocery store, the movie theater, the restaurants. They wanted to re-create the heart of the community,” said Paul Weinschenk, Peterson’s president of retail. “It worked. It enlivened the town and drew a whole new group of residents. But it was a lot of conservative beige.”

So Peterson re-made Downtown Silver Spring, but not with new tenants. Remaining are the 350,000 sq. ft. Ellsworth Place mall, the Ace Hardware, and the restaurants including Red Lobster and the Copper Canyon Grill. What was new was a wash of color and art.

A 300-foot-long street mural inspired by sound and electricity waves zig-zags across Ellsworth Drive, now lined with bistro tables and shade umbrellas. A 20-foot- high flower-tower titled “The Queen of Blooms” has transformed an elevator tower showing a silhouette of a woman in a colorful headdress. A busy pedestrian center has been covered with “Silver Spring Walls”—three building murals executed by artists James Bullough and 1010.

Perhaps the most distinctive piece of art is Blumen Lumen, a 25-foot-tall sculpture of folded, stainless steel flowers that open and close as the sun rises and sets and, at night, are capable of reacting to human voices.

“The downtown we created 20 years ago was right for the community then,” Weinschenk said. “But the community today is different, even more diverse, and this festive, colorful, art-driven space is right for what Silver Spring is now. Everybody gets it.”

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NATIONAL HARBOR

DOWNTOWN SILVER SPRING

National Harbor, MD

Silver Spring, MD

FAIRFAX CORNER Fairfax, VA

FAIR LAKES CENTER Fairfax, VA

COMMONWEALTH CENTER

RIO

Ashburn, VA

Gaithersburg, MD

Exciting Destinations. ®

Exceptional Communities.

32-41-CSA_Top10.indd 39

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REAL ESTATE

AVALON

Alpharetta, Georgia

The COVID-19 pandemic put the old retail real estate establishment up against the wall.

All of a sudden, the enclosed mega-centers that had won people over for decades with controlled environments and all-encompassing selections were being shut down as health hazards. People found it safer and easier to buy their clothes and even their dinners online, and what new projects started were open-air centers loaded with restaurants, entertainment centers, bars, and green spaces.

One very popular such mixed-use center in Alpharetta, Ga., became the poster project for the New Retail World Order.

North American Properties’ Avalon center deftly hit all the right compositional notes on NAP’s avante-center music sheet: chic shops, fine-dining restaurants, a swank hotel, luxury apartments, Class A office space, concierge service, and 200 events a year that draw people in from as far away as Atlanta.

“We call each of our employees at ‘ExperienceMakers.’ It applies to everyone on our team, from executives to housekeepers to maintenance staff,” said Cayley Mullin, NAP’s VP of marketing. “We show them all the videos of our services and events and explain to them that they’re a part of this.”

In order to keep Avalon “activated” 18 hours a day, every day, Mullin and her marketing corps treat tenants differently than most landlords, too.

“We set the tone with tenants on day one that we can’t do these events without them,” she said. “We will cater to each of their needs and do special invitation-only events for specific categories of retailers.”

8

CROCKER PARK

Westlake, Ohio

9

MELLODY FARM

Vernon Hills, Illinois

Enhanced customer experience has become a paramount consideration in all types of retail centers, and that’s how Regency Centers approached its planning of a new outdoor center in the Chicago suburb of Vernon Hills back in 2015.

“There was a growing population in Vernon Hills. It had just been named one of the best towns in the U.S. to live in,” said Regency’s VP of property operations Peggy McDermott. “Our thought was to bring the city to the suburbs. Create a place with urban walkability and urban architectural styles. In so many of these centers, people park next to one store and then drive to another.”

The tenant roster at what became known as Mellody Farm (after the nearby Hawthorn Mellody dairy) assumed an urban visage, as well: Whole Foods, Nordstrom Rack, REI, Athleta, and West Elm, among others.

Non-uniformity was the tone Regency seized upon for the grounds. There are children’s play areas and a fire pit where adults can hang out. Sidewalks are wider than one would expect in such a center; colorful benches dot the walkways and invite photos. And the grounds regularly host art exhibitions: Kelsey Montague’s wing murals on glass was one recent placement.

Mellody Farms runs a schedule of seasonal events such as the “Hello Summer” luxury picnic featuring 21 local VIPs and (pre-COVID) the “Meet Me at Mellody Farm” series of 30 festivities that included movie nights, campfire sessions, and a Halloween celebration.

Regency molded its plans for Mellody Farm using careful research.

“Back in 2015, our market research team studied migration patterns and formed some pretty good assumptions about which neighborhoods we’d draw customers from,” said Regency’s marketing VP Jan Hanak. “We engaged with them right from the start and asked them what they’d like to see in the center. And we gave it to them.”

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When pandemic crowd restrictions were lifted in Ohio earlier this year, Crocker Park, the apartment-office-retail center that first rocked West Cleveland’s world 20 years ago, threw a block party—and 6,000 people showed up.

“The property was never closed, because it’s still a 24/7, open-air environment. We had reduced hours, but we continued drawing people through the pandemic because they’d come here for a reprieve,” said COO Ezra Stark of Stark Enterprises, whose father Bob Stark patterned Crocker Park after lively Manhattan neighborhoods.

A high percentage of Cleveland weddings took place last year at the center’s spacey Market Square event center—a real-town type of venue not found at many modern mixed-use centers.

Ezra, who’s elevated the company’s holdings to 8 million sq. ft. of property, has this year been busy making more additions to Crocker. American Greetings moved its headquarters to Crocker Park in 2014, and he is developing a space beneath the company’s building into an entertainment zone. Urban Air signed to be the first tenant and Stark expects to welcome as many as 10 more.

“Our residential occupancy is 100% with waiting lists. Retail leasing activity is greater than it was before the pandemic,” Stark said. “Retailers know that if they want to make an impact on the west side, they need to come to Crocker Park.”

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Centered Around Experience We are proud that our Mellody Farm earned a spot among Chain Store Age’s Top 10 Retail Center Experiences for 2021.

Every day, we connect people and communities.

A focus on the right mix of options and experiences, heritage and reinvention, and local and national retailers make our centers stand out in every market we serve.

We are defining the future of retail.

Discover your next opportunity at RegencyCenters.com

RegencyCenters.com

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7/29/21 11:12 AM

REGION REPORT: MIDWEST

REAL ESTATE

A Slow Recovery Unfolds in Major Markets New retail construction is minimal in the middle of the country, reports Marcus & Millichap, and inventory is sparse. Quality addresses are few in most downtowns, so focus growth on the suburbs

By Al Urbanski

CHICAGO The retail vacancy rate rose to 6.9% in the second quarter of 2021, equaling the five-year high. That caused average asking rents to tick down just slightly to $17.60—but both vacancies and prices varied greatly depending on the neighborhood. In the suburbs, vacancies were just 4% and rent middled at $15.26. Downtown, average rents were $28.33, and in the South and West Loop nabes, vacancies topped 20%. Essential retailers including Amazon Fresh, Aldi, and Shop-N-Save broadened their Chicago profiles during the COVID-19 onslaught. Also expanding their presences were Big Lots, Burlington, Chick-Fil-A, and Raising Cane. Only 200,000 sq. ft. of new construction was delivered in 2020, so vacancy rates should hold steady this year.

Chicago’s Q2 2021 Key Numbers Vacancy rate: 6.9% Avg. asking rent per sq. ft.: $17.48 Avg. single-tenant price per sq. ft.: $330 Avg. single-tenant cap rate: 6.8% Avg. multi-tenant price per sq. ft.: $255 Avg. multi-tenant cap rate: 7.8% CINCINNATI Retailers looking to expand will be hardpressed in Cincinnati. No new retail project going up here this year will top 50,000 sq. ft., leaving the metro with its second lowest retail inventory in 15 years. Space was snapped up by value players like Ross Dress for Less and Dollar General during the pandemic and inventory will stagnate on a 0.1% increase in 2021. Marcus & Millichap expects employment levels to rise by 2.6%, but more hiring will be needed to make up for the 65,000-plus jobs lost in 2020. That leaves retail spending low and retailers standing pat. Among the four largest submarkets by inventory, the city of Cincinnati was the only to post rent growth with a 2.7% rise. Investors paused

CHICAGO

A Topgolf takes shape at the under-construction Veridian project in Schaumburg.

as annual transactions fell by 46%, led by a 56% drop in multi-tenant deals.

Cincinnati’s Q2 2021 Key Numbers Vacancy rate: 5.5% Avg. asking rent per sq. ft.: $11.92 Avg. single-tenant price per sq. ft.: $350 Avg. single-tenant cap rate: 6.6% Avg. multi-tenant price per sq. ft.: $200 CLEVELAND J.C. Penney and Bed Bath & Beyond both closed multiple sites here, producing a negative annual absorption rate for the first time since 2009. Additional vacant retail space, including 190,000-sq.-ft. from the Macy’s that closed at Great Lakes Mall, looks to outpace leasing activity and push the vacancy rate to over 6%. Vacancies in downtown Cleveland are just 2% due to minimal supply, a condition likely to persist.

New retail completions in 2021 will be well below last year’s 469,000 sq. ft.—the lowest addition since 2007. Investors in Cleveland backed off in 2020, decreasing trading volume by 46%. Retail deals most sought after were Class B and C properties in Lake and Cuyahoga counties.

Cleveland’s Q2 2021 Key Numbers Vacancy rate: 6.2%

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Avg. asking rent per sq. ft.: $10.46 Avg. cap rate: 7% Avg. single-tenant price per sq. ft.: $304 Avg. multi-tenant price per sq. ft.: $183 COLUMBUS At 3.8%, Columbus posted one of the lowest retail vacancy rates in the country last year. It quickly recovered 70% of the jobs lost during the first months of the pandemic, and the trend figures to continue.

Marcus & Millichap analysts expect retail to flourish with nearly full classrooms at Ohio State University and more Buckeyes fans packed into Ohio Stadium. Space will be tight for retailers, too: New deliveries in 2020 increased inventory by just half a percent. A similarly slow construction pace will continue through 2021 when restaurant spaces in new mixed-use centers like Easton Town Center’s New District (see p. 32) will account for half of the year’s supply additions. In this growing metro, look for available space in Columbus East and Columbus North.

Columbus’s Q2 2021 Key Numbers Vacancy rate: 4.4% Avg. asking rent per sq. ft.: $14.79 Avg. multi-tenant price per sq. ft.: $270 JULY/AUGUST 2021

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REAL ESTATE

DETROIT Jobs have rebounded significantly in Detroit this year, with employment going up 5% after the town posted one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation (23%) in the hardest hit months of the pandemic.

Shutdown stores drove retail vacancies up by 50 basis points and turned net absorption to a negative 1.1 million sq. ft. New retail construction is expected to be modest in 2021—about 550,000 sq. ft.

Detroit’s Q1 2021 Key Numbers Vacancy rate: 6.6% Avg. asking rent per sq. ft.: $14.19 Avg. cap rate: 7.2% Avg. single-tenant price per sq. ft.: $264 Avg. multi-tenant price per sq. ft.: $153 INDIANAPOLIS At 2.7%, Indianapolis sported one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation pre-pandemic—then lost 131,000 jobs. But nearly 70% of those positions were restored by the end of 2020 and the unemployment rate during Q2 2021 stabilized at 4.5%. Less than 250,000 sq. ft. of new retail space is expected to enter the market this year, adding a mere 0.2% to the current inventory. One interesting opening for specialty shops and dining establishments is the Bottleworks District, a long-awaited mixed-use renovation of a Coca-Cola bottling plant that has a 140room hotel, a movie theater, a food hall, and shops such as Good Neighbor, Drybar, and Yoga Six. Indianapolis’s Q1 2021 Key Numbers Vacancy rate: 5.4% Avg. asking rent per sq. ft.: $13.84 Avg. multi-tenant cap rate: 8.2% Avg. multi-tenant price per sq. ft.: $253 KANSAS CITY Retail space completions here fell to a nine-year low in Q3 2020, and while construction picked up in the fourth quarter, just 180,000 sq. ft of new space is expected to be delivered in 2021, adding a nearly invisible 0.1% to the metro’s inventory.

Rents have held very steady over the past five years in Kansas City, a trend undisturbed by the pandemic. Thirteen-dollar prices have been the norm since 2018 and Marcus & Millichap predicts they’ll stay that

INDIANAPOLIS

The Bottleworks District re-energizes an old Coca-Cola bottling plant.

way throughout 2021. Brands have been busy moving into South Kansas City and St. Joseph, where availability has been steadily dropping.

Kansas City’s Q1 2021 Key Numbers Vacancy rate: 6.7% Avg. asking rent per sq. ft.: $13.16 Avg. multi-tenant price per sq. ft.: $255 MILWAUKEE As in Kansas City, retail rents in Milwaukee have retained their five-year levels, holding at just under $13 before, during, and after the height of the pandemic. And as in most other major Midwestern metros, construction of new retail space has been sluggish. Just a little more than 100,000 sq. ft went up in 2020 and Marcus & Millchap expects less than that to be delivered in 2021. Downtown rents remained on an upward trajectory through the end of last year until now, settling just above $33 per square foot. National brands seeking stronger footholds in the metro focused on the suburbs of Wauwatosa, Brookfield, and Oak Creek.

Milwaukee’s Q1 2021 Key Numbers Vacancy rate: 4.6% Avg. asking rent per sq. ft.: $12.68 Avg. cap rate: 7.2% Avg. multi-tenant price per sq. ft.: $236 MINNEAPOLIS-ST.PAUL Builders were busier putting up new centers and stores in Minnesota than they were in other sectors of the Midwest. The opening of a massive Scheel’s sporting goods store in Eden Prairie--complete with

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indoor ferris wheel and synthetic skating rink—took the completions total to near 300,000 sq. ft. in the metro. An additional 473,000 sq. ft. is planned to be delivered in 2021, with a new Menards having opened in Apple Valley. The unemployment rate shot from around 3% to more than 10% during the pandemic, but things have stabilized. More than 15,000 new apartments are expected to be available to rent over the next two years.

Minneapolis-St Paul’s Q1 2021 Key Numbers Vacancy rate: 4.7% Avg. asking rent per sq. ft.: $16.19 Avg. cap rate: 6.8% Avg. single-tenant price per sq. ft.: $314 Avg. multi-tenant price per sq. ft.: $223 ST. LOUIS Drive-through retail properties in this metro were hot among out-of-state investors in late 2020, trading at an average of $700 per sq. ft. While activity in other retail sectors lagged, new construction last year approached 400,000 sq. ft. as major retail portions of the City Foundry project opened. Marcus & Millichap predicts another 300,000 sq. ft. will be delivered this year. A decline in the average asking rent is attributed to a lack of quality space on the market. Sale prices declined for both single- and multi-tenant properties.

St. Louis’s Q1 2021 Key Numbers Vacancy rate: 5.2% Avg. asking rent per sq. ft.: $13.31 Avg. cap rate: 6.8% Avg. single-tenant price per sq. ft.: $284 Avg. multi-tenant price per sq. ft.: $214 JULY/AUGUST 2021

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TECH VIEWPOINT anyone who has ever dealt with a fully automated call center can attest, sometimes you just need help from a live person. Also, associates with smart devices can aid less tech-savvy shoppers in removing friction from “frictionless” shopping experiences.

Tech Trends — My Take Sometimes my mind wanders to (among other industry topics) what “touchless” retailing really means.

When you spend 40-plus hours a week immersed in the latest happenings in retail technology, you inevitably form a few opinions. In the interest of delivering an informative, unbiased account of industry news, I (usually) leave them out of the articles I write.

But this is a column. Expressing opinions is not only encouraged, but sort of mandatory to the whole idea of distinguishing it from a traditional, fact-based article. In the spirit of sharing opinions whether they are asked for or not, here is my take on emerging developments in touchless retailing, third-party online marketplaces and same-day fulfillment.

Touchless retailing needs a human touch Even as we enter a long, slow wind-down from the COVID-19 pandemic, retailers continue launching new “touchless” brick-and-mortar formats. For example, Foot Locker is rolling out the FreedomPay edge commerce platform across all of its more than 2,000 stores in the U.S. The touchless-capable payment system provides Foot Locker’s-store shoppers with control over their checkout experience by delivering the option to pay via contactless payment methods and digital wallets, all on their own devices. As a result, Foot Locker intends to provide an advanced, safe and secure in-store consumer payments experience for millions of U.S. shoppers.

Also, Amazon recently introduced its newest contactless payment method to shoppers in America’s most populated city. Customers at the Amazon Go convenience store in midtown Manhattan can now pay for their purchases with just a wave of the palm of their hand. The store offers the Amazon One palm-scanning payment option. Initially introduced at two Seattle-area Amazon Go stores in September 2020, Amazon One is designed to let customers use their unique palm signature to pay or present a loyalty card at a store.

While the idea of a dedicated human cashier may seem quaint within a few years, I don’t see the need for human associates going away anytime soon. As CHAINSTOREAGE.COM

Third-party online marketplaces come of age Led by Amazon Marketplace, third-party online marketplaces are claiming a unique niche in the broader e-commerce vertical. What eBay (now a top third-party marketplace in its own right) originally did for individual sellers cleaning out their attics, third-party marketplaces do for small brands and retailers attempting to perform e-commerce at scale.

For a small business, a third-party online marketplace can provide a ready-made storefront, customer base, and fulfillment network. For a large online retailer, it enables the rapid and cost-effective expansion of product assortment. The fact that I have recently interviewed the founders of two businesses dedicated to purchasing and promoting small brands that sell on third-party marketplaces – Boosted Commerce and Perch – underscores the importance of this business model.

Consumers want the world – and they want it now When legendary Doors vocalist Jim Morrison sang, “We want the world and we want it now” in 1967, he wasn’t referring to consumer expectations for on-demand order fulfillment. But the sentiment certainly applies to customers who have come to appreciate the convenience and immediacy of same-day delivery, BOPIS and curbside pickup services which have become ubiquitous during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mercifully, COVID-19 appears to be abating in the U.S. But customer desire to have any product available for omnichannel order and fulfillment the same day, via multiple options, will only continue to grow. The industry is realizing this fact, as demonstrated by trends such as the dizzying array of non-grocery/CPG retailers partnering with major on-demand delivery platforms (Five Below and Bed, Bath & Beyond are two recent examples) Another trend reflecting the fast-growing demand for same-delivery is the increased use of idle stores and even shopping malls to support local fulfillment, and the rapid growth of micro-fulfillment, which uses small-scale warehouse facilities located in urban areas to quickly fulfill orders.

Every Tuesday The premier newsletter showcasing technology and multi-channel, seamless retailing.

From e-commerce and mobility to in-store technology and social media, Connected Retail keeps retail executives in the know about the fast-paced, ever-evolving world of retail tech.

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Dan Berthiaume dberthiaume@chainstoreage.com

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TECH

Holiday Tech Prep Navigating the most uncertain holiday season in years

By Dan Berthiaume The upcoming 2021 holiday season offers retailers a uniquely challenging proposition in trying to prepare their technology and supply chain operations.

So far, 2021 has offered retailers an overall better environment than the pandemicwracked year of 2020. COVID-19 still very much hangs over the retail landscape. But as of July 2021, most stores have reopened with few or no pandemic-related restrictions, and a combination of government stimulus payments and robust job growth has helped spur consumer spending.

Yet, an uncertain track for COVID-19 infection spread in the coming months and continuing supply chain disruptions make it difficult for retailers to decide how to properly prepare their brick-and-mortar, e-commerce, and supply chain organizations for the holidays. Here are some suggestions.

Mind the store Paula Rosenblum, managing partner at RSR Research, recommends that retailers be ready to manage busy stores this holiday season.

“Be careful about assumptions this year,” advised Rosenblum. “There is a pent-up desire to be out and about. Prepare for crowds in stores. Find out how much old inventory you have sitting around and price strategically.”

While Rosenblum said it is already getting late for retailers to place any new technologies in the store in time for the holiday season, she did suggest they ensure that proper preparations have been made to support omnichannel options like curbside pickup and buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS).

“If your store is in a mall and you’re offering curbside pickup, where is the curb?” asked Rosenblum. “If you’re in a shopping mall and offer in-store pickup, which door do customers use? It’s also not a small question in shopping centers. There needs to be a lot of conversations and logistical planning.

You need to have conversations with your

landlord. Also, you need to have the proper staffing – there are mobile employee apps that can assist.”

In general, Rosenblum urged retailers to heavily focus on recruiting high-quality store associates.

“Get people working in the store who care,” she said. “Pay them well. People are saying no to jobs or not applying to them if they do not provide respectable pay and benefits. They don’t want to be made to feel second-class.”

Getting real with virtual commerce While Rosenblum cited the need for strategic holiday pricing in the store, this need is not limited to brick-and-mortar retailers.

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As an online retailer of luxury artificial Christmas trees and seasonal decorations, Balsam Brands earns more than 80% of its $200 million-plus annual sales during the last three months of the year. Strategic holiday pricing is especially crucial for the retailer to hit its sellout goals and protect bottom-line metrics.

Balsam Brands leverages the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Competera pricing platform, utilizing demand-driven price reduction recommendations created by the solution’s trainable AI models. The retailer automates weekly repricing, carries out price adjustments following the sales plan, and makes data-driven pricing decisions.

During the difficult 2020 holiday season, JULY/AUGUST 2021

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Competera’s AI models generated 24,000 price reduction recommendations, enabling Balsam Brands to decrease time for repricing by 50% and reach its set business goals by generating more than 3.5% of revenue and over 3% of gross margin.

“Competera’s smart algorithms made our price management data-powered and proactive and saved the team 50% of the time from routine tasks,” said Joyce Lin, senior e-commerce business manager at Balsam Brands.

Specialty gift retailer 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. also does a heavy volume of online business during the holiday season. Abi Sachdeva, CTO of 1-800-Flowers.com, said his company starts preparation for the holiday period in January, and begins with data.

“We review data from across our family of brands, including information from previous peak periods and past challenges, to uncover any potential vulnerabilities and implement solutions,” explained Sachdeva. “We also look at forecast metrics from across the business that we use to determine our target traffic and order metrics, which we then use to load-test the system. The entire platform, including e-commerce front-end and back-end services, are load-tested simulating production peak traffic. Following the tests, our teams then review all results and make configuration adjustments as needed.”

To provide customers with a best-in-class shopping journey across the 12 brands the company hosts on its e-commerce platform, 1-800-Flowers leverages leading-edge technologies including AI, automation, and conversational commerce.

“We want customers to be able to shop with us wherever, however, and whenever they choose, and we continuously evolve the capabilities of our platform to accommodate consumer needs,” said Sachdeva.

Removing weak links from the supply chain In addition to global disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, retailers have also faced unexpected supply chain shocks such as the March 2021 Suez Canal blockage, which is still creating negative aftereffects.

While retailers cannot control or predict what types of disturbances may occur in the supply chain, they can utilize advanced distribution, logistics and warehousing systems to help minimize their impact. Decathlon CHAINSTOREAGE.COM

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Canada, the Canadian division of the world’s largest sporting goods retailer, Decathlon, is tackling the holiday rush with smart robots in its supply chain.

Decathlon Canada is deploying Exotec Skypod mobile 3D robots at a supply chain facility in Montreal in December 2021, just in time to help the retailer meet the demands of holiday shopping and returns. The retailer will leverage Skypod to drive more efficient brick-and-mortar store replenishment and e-commerce fulfillment.

Laser scanner navigation enables the Skypods to navigate in a multidirectional manner while carrying bins of up to 30 kg.

This capability is designed to free up time for warehouse associates to focus on packing and shipping, avoiding long-distance walks to obtain inventory.

During the 2020 holiday season, Walmart took space in 42 of its existing regional distribution centers (RDCs) across the U.S. and created pop-up e-commerce distribution centers, or eDCs, to meet its growing demand for delivery of online orders directly to customers. Walmart expected to ship up to 30% of its holiday volume from these pop-up eDCs. A multichannel sourcing engine (MCSE) scanned the entirety of the company’s fulfillment network in less than a second and assigned orders to eDCs when it determined

they would offer the fastest, most efficient option to fulfill an online order.

Other supply chain technology enhancements Walmart has used for the holidays include implementing random stow for both sortable and non-sortable items, improving pick times to avoid congestion in aisles with frequently purchased products and ensuring warehouse management app compatibility on employees’ personal devices. The chain has also rolled out a single, cloud-based integration platform to manage multiple thirdparty fulfillment solutions and increased visibility into its entire fulfillment operations to meet promised delivery dates.

And of course, good old-fashioned communication is always an important part of any supply chain strategy.

“We also work closely with our vendor partners, in addition to our internal stakeholders, to prepare the system for peak periods and ensure proper communication channels are in place for quick escalations,” said 1-800-Flowers’ Sachdeva.

When Black Friday comes, will anyone care?

A recent survey from digital experience management software company Sitecore suggests that consumers are no longer waiting for Black Friday to begin holiday shopping, and retailers are altering their holiday strategies accordingly. Interesting data points include: • 34% of consumers intend to start holiday shopping by Labor Day; • 53% of marketers have planned campaigns to start earlier this year than last; • 80% of marketers feel Black Friday has become outdated and associated negatively with consumer culture; • 76% of marketers will limit Black Friday promotions to the lone weekend on the calendar; and • Only 60% of brands plan a Black Friday promotion, down 17% from 2020.

In other findings, marketers also plan to use alternative ways to attract holiday shoppers this year. These include AR/VR (91%), subscription content programs (74%) and increasing the value of discounts and other services offered to consumers in exchange for their data (51%).

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TECH

Here to Stay Retailers increasingly find NFTs nifty

By Dan Berthiaume Retailers are discovering tangible value in the digital realm with nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

NFTs are unique digital assets stored on a blockchain ledger which certifies the owner. There is no way for an NFT to have more than one owner and only the certified owner can sell it. NFTs have experienced a dramatic surge in popularity in recent months, with many individuals and entities selling certified, one-of-a-kind digital images, videos, audio recordings and other files.

Increased consumer demand for NFTs will prompt more retailers, especially digitally savvy ones, to start selling them. Here are four retailers staking an early claim in the still-developing NFT marketplace.

Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s CKE Restaurants banners Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s partnered with actress and supermodel Charlotte McKinney for an NFT promotion featuring one of Mckinney’s “All-Natural Burger” bite shots from a 2015 advertising campaign. The NFT release, in partnership with Mckinney, is intended to signal the brands’ final goodbye to a more risqué advertising past as they continue to focus on new menu items.

“Charlotte McKinney is an integral part of one of our most storied advertising moments, and is now stepping into the crypto-culture,” said Patty Trevino, senior VP of brand marketing at CKE Restaurants.

“Working with her to auction off our first NFT is the ultimate way to turn the page and move forward from campaigns of our past, while still maintaining our provocative style of doing things.”

Domino’s Pizza Domino’s Pizza doesn’t want consumers to “avoid the Noid”; it wants them to purchase non-fungible tokens (NFTs) based on his antics. Recently, Domino’s launched a TV advertising campaign reviving the “Noid,” a cartoon villain featured in its promotions in the 1980s and ’90s. For a limited time, the retailer sold one-of-a-kind NFT images based on tools the Noid uses in the commercials, such as a “Pizza Crusher” and “Noid Balloon Blockade.”

The Noid-themed NFTs were to be sold during the course of a 14day auction, in what Domino’s said is a scheme by the Noid to fund “future schemes.” As part of the promotion, Domino’s humorously told customers to “please don’t buy them.”

“We saw the Noid fans on Twitter asking how they could get a Pizza Crusher. We get it, it looks pretty fun,” said Kate Trumbull, Domino’s VP of advertising. “But who knows what pesky ideas the Noid will be able to fund with the proceeds from the NFT sale? It’s just best that everyone steers clear.” eBay eBay is now allowing the purchase and sale of NFTs to be conducted on its platform. In the past year, eBay has been increasing the services 48

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Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s partner with supermodel Charlotte McKinney for an NFT of an image taken from a 2015 advertising campaign.

it offers buyers and sellers of more traditional, physical collectibles, including luxury watches, trading cards and sneakers.

Following the initial rollout, eBay plans to launch programs, policies and tools that will allow customers to buy and sell NFTs with greater ease and confidence, across a broader range of categories. eBay also plans to add new capabilities to bring blockchain-driven collectibles to its platform.

“Our open platform is a big part of why eBay is so successful, and that won’t change,” Jordan Sweetnam, eBay senior VP and GM, North America, said in a corporate statement “NFTs offer greater access to a broader audience of collectors and creators. We plan to double down on this idea — combining eBay’s global reach with the principle that anyone can find almost anything on our platform.”

Shopify Shopify is integrating the NFT distribution platform from enterprise NFT solutions provider Sweet into its digital marketplace. The ability to sell and distribute through Shopify’s ecommerce platform encompasses direct NFT sales, as well as gamified bundled “gift with purchase” NFT experiences with physical merchandise, such as t-shirts, vinyl albums and sneaker drops. Since NFTs are publicly verifiable and can’t be counterfeited, packaging them with physical goods can also serve as an authentication method.

“To date, NFTs have been primarily sold through third-party crypto marketplaces, forcing brands to make the hard choice of directing consumers to an off-brand experience,” said Tom Mizzone, CEO and founder of Sweet. “Now anyone can get into the NFT game through the familiar Shopify checkout experience.”

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TECH

Malls Deploying Tech Solutions

By Dan Berthiaume Shopping centers are leveraging some very modern technology as consumers return to in-store shopping.

Here are three recent examples of mall operators that are applying leading-edge solutions to ensure their centers keep up with trends and customer expectations.

tech-enabled micro-distribution hubs using technology from Fillogic at select retail properties in summer 2020.

The company opened Fillogic hubs at two centers in New Jersey, the Livingston Mall and Gloucester Premium Outlets, the latter of which was Fillogic’s first location at an open-air or outlet center.

Mobile augmented reality Brookfield Properties will feature augmented reality-powered immersive experiences from The Aria Network across the centers in Brookfield’s retail portfolio.

The technology has the potential to provide shoppers — through the use of their mobile phones — the ability to interact with a variety of features, including content, a virtual mall directory, wayfinding and immersive retail displays. It also enables touch-free transactions, in-store brand experiences and digital interaction with their family and friends.

Aria said the use of AR drives purchase intent and higher conversions, and provides more robust first party-data with real-time insight into how shoppers engage, conversion triggers and what content resonates.

Aria will begin working with key partners to bring the 2021 holiday season to life with innovative experiences across the common areas of Brookfield Properties malls.

“As shopper experiences are critical for engagement across the malls, place-based AR and interactivity in common areas provide an effective and efficient way to engage shoppers as soon as they enter the mall, drive further traffic to tenants, and allow for new partners to become part of the equation,” said David Bell, former CEO Interpublic Group, advisor to The ARIA Network. “With this partnership, ARIA and Brookfield are opening the door to a new frontier that will enable a better shopper experience in public spaces while monetizing previously non-revenue generating air space.”

Buy now, pay later As consumers return to in-store shopping, they are holding fast to certain behaviors that gained ground as online commerce skyrocketed during the pandemic, including flexible payment options. It’s estimated that 45.1 million U.S. consumers (ages 14 and older) will use a buy-now-pay-later platform this year, up 81.2% over last year, according to eMarketer.

In July, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, owner of Westfield shopping centers in the United States, entered into an integrated, multi-year national partnership with buy-now, pay later platform Afterpay to to support retailers by offering consumers a more flexible way to pay for their purchases.

Through the partnership, the companies will jointly invest in bringing new customer experiences, retail innovations, events, marketing and onpremise advertising to Wesfield has entered into a partnership with Westfield’s U.S. shop- buy now, pay later platform Afterpay. ping centers, with plans to take the partnership global in the coming months.

Already, a number of new brands with a Westfield U.S. location have recently begun to accept Afterpay — including Lush Cosmetics, Aldo, The Children’s Place and The Container Store.

Afterpay allows shoppers to pay in four interest-free installments, using a one-time card to facilitate the purchase. The service is completely free for customers who pay on time.

“Afterpay is the ideal BNPL partner for us because we share a commitment to providing seamless and effective solutions to retailers that, in-turn, provide increased choice and flexibility for consumers,” said Colin Shaughnessy, executive VP, U.S. Leasing, URW. Mall giant Simon also has a partnership with Afterpay. In fall 2020, Simon began enabling customers in the U.S. to pay for their purchases at participating stores in its shopping and mixed-use destinations in four installment payments via Afterpay.

Simon customers can initiate a purchase in eligible stores by tapping the card icon in the Afterpay app, which activates the Afterpay card in the wallet and can be used to make purchases with Apple Pay or Google Pay. Shoppers can then take their purchase home and pay over time, interest-free. Because Afterpay payments are made with the retailers’ existing payment terminals, there are no merchant integration costs associated.

Micro-fulfillment Tanger Factory Outlets Centers has partnered with Fillogic, the logistics-as-a-service platform, to open its first tech-enabled micro distribution hub. Located at Tanger’s center in Deer Park, New York, the hub is anticipated to be a model for other Tanger outlet locations going forward.

The Deer Park hub offers a variety of shipping services, including same-day delivery for local residents and one-stop shopping, allowing customers to drop online returns on-site. In addition, traveling customers visiting from other areas can easily ship their purchases home.

“Our partnership with Fillogic allows us to take our fulfillment capabilities to the next level with even faster and more convenient delivery and return offerings,” said Stephen Yalof, CEO of Tanger Outlets. “It will also allow us to further expand our strategic partnerships and tenant portfolio into categories such as furniture and hardgoods that benefit from on-site logistics, providing customers with prompt white glove home delivery.”

Mall giant Simon Property Group began launching multiple, 50

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