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The Sun Valley Mall, Concord, Calif., had to be shut down for about two hours after more than 1,500 teen-agers waiting for an autograph-signing session with R&B band B2K swarmed a Sam Goody store. … McCrory Corp., which once operated 1,300 stores throughout the United States, has shut its last six stores. The company was considered the last of the five-and-dime chains exemplified by defunct Woolworth’s. John McCrory founded the chain in 1882, three years after F.W. Woolworth opened his first store. … One of the companies most affected by the Kmart closings is Footstar, which runs the footwear departments in all of Kmart’s stores. The departments in the closed stores accounted for $117 million of Footstar’s $2.4 billion in sales for 2001. … JP Realty Chairman and CEO John Price, who founded the company 44 years ago, is expected to resign his posts once the JP Realty-General Growth Properties transaction closes, a company spokesman said. Price was recently sworn in as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Mauritius. He will also serve concurrently as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the Federal and Islamic Republic of The Comoros and to the Republic of Seychelles. … Federated Department Stores is pursuing an economic assistance package from New York City to build a second Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan’s SoHo district. … According to a survey by Teenage Research Unlimited, U.S. teens spent an average of $104 a week on retail purchases last year. … Twelve employees were held captive overnight at a Staples store in Valley Stream, N.Y., by four assailants. Eventually, all four were arrested, and the hostages were released unharmed. … New York City department store chain Century 21 has reopened its Manhattan flagship, following completion of repairs for damage from the World Trade Center’s destruction in September. The store was so swamped with shoppers on its first day that management had to shut the doors early because it had reached maximum capacity. … Carrefour, the French retail giant, second in size only to Wal-Mart Stores, said it is exploring opening its trademark hypermarkets in Russia, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, by the end of next year. … The U.S. Commerce Department reported that e-commerce sales amounted to $32.6 billion last year, up 19 percent from 2000. While the percentage gain far exceeds the total 3.3 percent for all retail sales, e-commerce figures still accounted for only 1 percent of total retail sales, up 0.1 percent from 2000. Moreover, Wal-Mart alone reported total retail sales revenues of $217.8 billion, or more than six times the total volume of all U.S. e-commerce sales. … A full-scale replica of the Titanic will form the centerpiece of the new Xiehe World Square shopping complex in China. Scaled-down models of the Eiffel Tower and Sydney Harbour Bridge are also being planned for other zones.

— Dave Bodamer