Value Retail News is ICSC's publication featuring extensive and complete insight into the world of outlet and off-price retailers shopping centers. Here's a list of this month's articles and a summary of the stories.
Cover story
Lifestyle Outlets
Zales Outlet is based in Irving, Texas.
Zales and Skechers become two of the outlet industry’s big-growth tenants by focusing on a distinct lifestyle format.
Coverage of three sessions at ICSC’s first Tourism, Leisure and Entertainment Conference drives home strategies to ensure retail centers capture their fair share of the free-spending tourism market.
Overnight Delivery
The Recreational Overnighters Association brings nighttime visitors to shopping centers, many of them outlet projects.
Recruiting & Training
Bridging the Gap
The author of "Winning the Talent Wars" explains how retailers can win employee loyalty by better understanding what motivates each generational grouping.
Sales Training Dotcom
Sellingpros.com gives retailers a new option: Web-based training of sales associates.
Click the logo to visit their Website
Research
Center Sales Report
A total of 16 outlet centers changed hands between November 1998 and August 2000, most of them challenged projects. Their average sales price was $106 psf.
Focus on New Hampshire
One of the nation’s smallest states continues to be an outlet-store mecca. A new study shows that a quarter of the New Hampshire’s visitors come there specifically to shop.
Milestones
Outlet Pioneer Dies
Philip Belz, founder of Belz Enterprises, dies at age 96. His company developed the nation’s first new-construction outlet center in Lakeland, Tenn., in 1979.
Developers
Millennium Countdown
A total of five outlet centers and two value megamalls are expected to have opened by the end of the calendar year, totaling nearly 4 million sf.
Chelsea Opens in Orlando
Chelsea GCA Realty’s new Orlando project (right) is the epitome of what the developer of premier projects does best.
Wetlands Wonder
JMJ Properties initially wanted to design a village-style layout when it tackled its Outlets at Albertville (Minn.) project. But due to the site’s wetlands, a strip-center design proved to be the best solution.
The project’s final design (right) is an elongated U-shaped layout with a 250,000-sf phase 1 that stretches nearly a quarter mile.
Jackpot in Tunica
When gambling becomes the top draw almost overnight in a small Mississippi town, an outlet center can’t be far behind. A group of local investors in Tunica, Miss., struck while the fire was hot to build the $24 million Casino Factory Shoppes.
Primed in Puerto Rico
Prime Retail’s newest center (right) in Barceloneta, PR, is from the developer’s mold, but with an island twist.
Cape Crusaders
Two developers aiming to open outlet centers on Cape Cod see delays in the face of concerns over traffic congestion in the popular tourist area.
Meadowlands Maze
Mills Corp.’s long fight to win approvals to build a value/entertainment megamall in the New Jersey Meadowlands gets a boost from a federal environmental impact study.
Venerable British department store Marks and Spencer says it will open a chain of outlet stores.
Left: Marks & Spencers' home page
Europe Outlet Conference
The first VRN/ICSC-Europe Outlet Retailing Conference will be held Tuesday thru Thursday, June 12, 13 & 14, 2001, at the Barcelo Hotel Sants in Barcelona, Spain. The Conference will include educational seminars and deal making opportunities. For more details, contact Simon Osborn in ICSC’s London office, 44-207-440-8700; fax 44-207-242-8500; e-mail info@icsc.org.uk
Ron Jon, a Florida-based surf shop that has ventured into Mills Corp.’s value/entertainment projects, plans to open two or three stores a year for at least the next 5 years.
Surplus City
An off-price retailer that hopes to help revive a weak outlet center in Kentucky sees opportunities in similar challenged retail projects.
