Author Archives: Justine88

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International players have role in Westfield’s new strategy

By Justine Griffin for the Herald-Tribune

What do you do when faced with the imminent threat of being dethroned as the regional shopping centers?

Une option est de ramener les joueurs internationaux qui exciteront vos clients fantaisie.

(That’s roughly: “One option is to bring in international players that will tickle your customers’ fancy” — for those of you who don’t parler français).

Westfield Group — the Australian company known globally for malls and lifestyle centers, and known here for its ownership of the Southgate and Sarasota Square malls — plans to do just that: Reel in more international tenants as it continues to transform its Southwest Florida properties to better compete with the new $315 million Mall at University Town Center.

“Sarasota customers should expect to see some larger international names come to the properties real soon,” said Greg Miles, Westfield’s chief operating officer. “We aim to create lifestyle centers now, multifaceted places that offer a variety of shopping opportunities — not just malls or grocery stores anymore.”

Some of Southgate tenants have already been poached by the Mall at University Town Center, a project under development at University Parkway and Interstate 75 by Michigan’s Taubman Centers and Manatee County-based Benderson Development.

But Westfield has formed relationships with a new group of retailers — high-end brands from Europe that have few or no stores in the United States just yet — in hopes that these will fill vacancies left by brands like Gymboree, Saks Fifth Avenue, Pottery Barn, Express and others.

It would not be the mall owners’ first attempts to show some international flair.

Read more here.

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Sarasota area reels in Bass Pro Shop, sources say

basspeo

By Justine Griffin for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune

In a deal that’s been rumored for years, sources confirmed Tuesday that Southwest Florida has reeled in another big retail fish: Bass Pro Shops plans to open a store in this market.

The likely location of the megastore — which sell fishing, camping, hunting, boating and other gear — is at University Parkway and Interstate 75, near the under-construction Mall at University Town Center, sources said.

The Springfield, Missouri-based chain — with a store in Fort Myers and another being built in Brandon — has been aggressively expanding into Florida.

It is unclear when the local store is to open or when construction might begin. Representatives of the chain did not return a call for comment on Tuesday.

Bass Pro Shops stores vary in size, but the company’s traditional model, called “Outdoor World,” can be up to 300,000 square feet and is usually situated at a major thoroughfare, near other strong retail plazas or malls.

In recent years, smaller-format stores — 60,000 square feet — have opened to “in fill” areas in between their larger stores.

The Sarasota-Bradenton store will likely be one of those smaller-store formats, common among expanding companies these days, said Phoenix-based retail analyst Jeff Green, who is familiar with the Southwest Florida market.

Read more here.

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Malls’ brighter future is apparent in Vegas

By Justine Griffin for the Herald-Tribune

Real estate developers and retail chain executives are cautiously optimistic that 2014 is the year for chain stores to expand into new markets and for overall industry growth.

With retail sales up in April more than 4.1 percent compared with a year ago, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers trade group, analysts are hopeful that more new business is on the horizon.

That could mean more new brands coming to Southwest Florida in the near future.

The optimism can be seen in the record number of people in Las Vegas this week at the council’s annual ICSC RECON convention — the largest retail real estate gathering in the world. Industry officials hope to sign more new deals and build momentum to pre-recession levels.

“We’re coming off a strong ICSC conference in New York last December, and now there are more people going to ICSC in Vegas than the last five years,” said Faith Hope Consolo, chairwoman of the retail team for New York City-based Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

“Florida is such an important market that’s seen a lot of growth and change — a lot of great survivors down there, reinventing the wheel,” she said.

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Marketplace shifts and the rise of a new, high-end competitor put a company’s powers of reinvention to a Sarasota test

In Southwest Florida, at least, Westfield Group is likely in the fight of its life.

The company isn’t just facing the challenges of a growing demographic for whom the traditional mall is not the center of the retail universe. Its Southgate and Sarasota Square complexes must soon confront the Mall at University Town Center, a $315 million project on University Parkway that promises to shift luxury retail gravity to a new hub.

Already, the project by Manatee County’s Benderson Development Co. and Michigan-based Taubman Centers Inc. has claimed several of Southgate’s tenants. Indeed, the Mall at University Town Center’s key anchor, Saks Fifth Avenue, will close its 40,000-square-foot store in Southgate when the new mall opens in October.

Others jumping ship include Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma, Gap, Express and Gymboree.

But Westfield, a 55-year-old Australian company whose roots stretch back to the suburbs of Sydney, has shown a remarkable ability to adapt to changing times, fierce competitors and new geographies.

The global shopping center manager — it now has more than 100 malls scattered around the globe — has developed a knack for remaking its properties, whether by redeveloping existing centers to fit a different mold, or adding unlikely tenants like Costco or Target to fill vacancies and draw new customers.

“Westfield has been very innovative in the past, and brought new life into old formats,” said Jeff Green, an analyst with Phoenix-based Jeff Green Partners who closely traffics the retail trade in Southwest Florida.

It will need that inventiveness to preserve regional shopping destinations that have served Sarasota County for decades.

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Business inspired by daughter’s short life

jim russ

Photo by Dan Wagner

 

By Justine Griffin for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune

SARASOTA — Shopping was a favorite pastime for Amber Lanelle Russ, Jim Russ’s daughter, and an activity the pair loved to do together.

They would cruise through the aisles of Walmart and Dollar General stores in Sarasota, Amber happy to just be with her father, who pushed her wheelchair for hours, even though they would rarely come home with lots of merchandise.

Amber Russ was in need of that chair all of her life. Though she could not talk or see very much because of conditions that included epilepsy, cortical blindness and scoliosis, she always smiled when she was out shopping in the community with her father.

“If you’ve ever shopped with a child in a wheelchair, you know you need bags that can hang easily from the back of the chair,” Russ said. “We always used the reusable grocery bags and, eventually, we started personalizing them.”

That began when Amber came home from Oak Park School in Sarasota with a new drawing or painting she had done in class. Russ would staple his daughter’s artwork to the tote bags as a way to brighten them up. One day, he stapled a picture of Amber’s beagle, Snoopy, to a bag.

“It seemed to brighten her day,” Russ said.

Amber passed away in 2011, just a month shy of her 21st birthday. Despite his grief, something told Russ to continue to make the bags he had used with his daughter.

“About four months after she died, I could feel her talking to me, saying, ‘Daddy, work on those bags,’ ” Russ said. “So for some odd reason, I did.”

Read more here.