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TOWER OPENS WORLD MUSIC STORE; NEW RECORD LABEL IN WORKS

In a pair of moves announced last month, Tower Records said it will open a World Music concept store in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. It also said it will open its own record company with a proprietary label based in Sacramento, Calif., later this year. Tower opened a 5,000-square-foot World Music store on E. 4th Street in November, not far from existing Tower Records and Tower Video outlets. The store will carry 50,000 albums covering dozens of international music genres. The store opened unofficially in November, but is just now celebrating its official grand opening. In a separate announcement, Tower said it would begin recording and packaging music on its own record label, called 33rd Street Records. The first albums will be released on April 24 from the artists Settie and Align.

AFTER 50 YEARS, IMATERNITY REINVENTS ITSELF WITH REBRANDING

The 50-year-old maternity goods retailer imaternity, Chicago, formerly Dan Howard Industries, relaunched its e-commerce site and several new and remodeled stores today as part of a companywide effort to rebrand itself. It operates 175 retail stores nationwide in addition to the www.imaternity.com Web site. By year’s end, nearly all of the company’s stores, which were known as Dan Howard’s Maternity Outlet or MotherTime, will be reopened under the imaternity banner featuring a new name, logo and store design. Overall, 110 Dan Howard’s Maternity Outlet stores have begun their transformation to the new label. The company’s 60 MotherTime stores are being remodeled as well. As part of the moves, all the stores will install interactive kiosks linked to imaternity’s Web site.

RETAIL PORTION OF FOREST CITY’S STAPLETON TO OPEN IN 2002

The development of Cleveland, Ohio-based Forest City Enterprises’ mixed-used Stapleton Project, on the site of the former Denver airport, is under way. The 740,000-square-foot retail portion of the project, Québec Center at Stapleton, will open in 2002 and feature a Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Home Depot. Also, this year Forest City plans to open the 455,000-square foot Queens (New York) Place in the fall; the 856,000-square foot Mall at Robinson, Pittsburgh; and the 1.2 million-square foot Mall at Stonecrest, Atlanta, in the winter. All of the projects are joint ventures with other developers.

J.C. PENNEY SELLING DIRECT MARKETING SERVICES

Struggling department store operator J.C. Penney is selling its direct marketing services assets, including its J.C. Penney Life Insurance subsidiaries, which are some of the retailer’s most profitable divisons, to Hague, Netherlands-based direct marketing company Aegon for about $1.3 in cash. The unit markets insurance policies to consumers using the data collected from its credit card files. Penney decided to sell the division because it was not part of its core business, despite being one of its most valuable assets. It posted profits of $67 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2000 alone. As part of the deal, Penney and Aegon agree to a 15-year alliance that could result in annual payments to Penney of between $25 million and $40 million a year.

 

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