This Views & News blog offers you not only links to news sites that cover the retail real estate industry but a blurb from Rudy Milian with his summary observations, opinions and insights about the news that retail real estate professionals need to stay up-to-date in an ever-changing industry. Find here our selection of published news about store openings and closings, retail real estate activity, trends influencing commercial real estate, the impact of economic indicators on property valuations, merchandise categories and leasing trends, and more. Some of the news sites linked here are accessible to the public, while others require free or paid registration.
Tractor Supply Company will open 90 new stores this year and an additional 100 are planned for 2026.
During the retailer's third-quarter earnings call, executives revealed net sales records and noted that a major portion of its expansion is focused on Western states.
Read more: How Tractor Supply broke a sales record without big price increases (The Tennessean)
Bombas, the socks, underwear and t-shirts brand sold at Academy Sports + Outdoors, Anthropologie, DICK'S Sporting Goods, DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse, Nordstrom, Target, and other stores is finally opening its first brick-and-mortar retail store in New York City at 345 Bleecker Street.
Following that opening, Bombas will open new physical stores at the Town Center at Boca Raton, Fla. and The Domain in Austin, Texas.
Bombas was founded by entrepreneurs Randy Goldberg and David Heath in 2013, and the next year, they appeared together on the popular TV show Shark Tank where they received funding for growing the company, mostly through direct online selling, then through wholesaling.
The brand has since gone on to become the most successful venture in the TV show’s history, generating over $2 billion in lifetime sales. Former Under Armour and EXPRESS executive Jason LaRose joined the company as president in July 2024, and became CEO in May 2025.
PERIGOLD, Wayfair ’s luxury brand, opened a second brick-and-mortar location at CityPlace, a lifestyle center in West Palm Beach, according to Rebecca A. Ginns, who heads up the operations for PERIGOLD. CityPlace is owned and operated by Related Ross.
The new store is roughly 30,000 square feet on two levels, about one third larger than the first PERIGOLD store that opened four months ago at Highland Village Shopping Center in Houston. Highlands Village is one of America’s oldest shopping centers built in the 1940s, and is currently owned by Haidar Barbouti's Highland Village Holdings.
Read more: Perigold’s Florida debut provides larger showcase for the luxury brand (Furniture Today)
UNIQLO, the global retail chain that already operates 78 stores in the U.S. has announced its 2026 new location lineup:
- Williamsburg (New York City)
- Union Square (New York City)
- Bryant Park, 5th Avenue (New York City)
- World Trade Center (New York City)
- 600 N. Michigan Avenue (Chicago)
- Oakbrook Center (near Chicago)
- Downtown San Francisco: 830 Market Street
- Downtown Crossing: 395-403 Washington Street (Boston)
- Annapolis Mall (Maryland)
- Georgetown Park: 3262 M Street NW (Washington D.C.)
- Issaquah Commons (Seattle)
The Japanese fashion apparel chain has more than 2,500 stores worldwide.
Read more: Uniqlo plots 2026 expansion — here's where (Chain Store Age)
With the third full shopping center acquisition this year — a shopping center in Norwalk, Conn. — Walmart Inc. seems to have recently discovered what Publix Super Markets has known for many years: that controlling their real estate, creating the optimum tenant mix and collecting rents from tenants is good business with the added advantage of asset appreciation that comes with owning commercial real estate.
Thus far, Walmart’s acquisitions this year appear to be very selective. If Walmart wants to move full throttle into commercial real estate ownership, we would see the company acquiring a national shopping center company along with its underlying real estate assets and the management company to help manage the business. Is that a possibility? Maybe and maybe not.
Walmart keeps nearly $9.4 billion in cash equivalent on hand and could acquire real estate on a massive scale if its board felt this is a way to diversify and grow its holdings. But so far, Walmart’s priorities for investing cash have just included spending on automation, its supply chain, artificial intelligence and technology, improving its Sam’s Club warehouses and remodeling Walmart stores in the United States and abroad.
Time will tell the extent of Walmart’s appetite for being a landlord to other retailers.
Read more: Walmart buys latest shopping center as US chains push to own their stores (CoStar News)
Ross Stores, Inc. continues its rapid expansion. It opened 36 Ross Dress for Less and four DD’s Discounts stores across 17 different states in September and October for a total of 90 new locations in FY2025.
The retailer wants to grow its store count to at least 2,900 Ross Dress for Less and 700 DD’s Discounts locations over time.
Read more: Ross Stores opens 40 new locations, plans to continue expansion (Chain Store Age)
Walmart, after purchasing Monroeville Mall is planning to redevelop it into a mixed-use site with the help of Cypress Equities. The redevelopment will feature a Walmart store, Sam's Club, retail shops, a skating rink and restaurants.
Read more: Why Did Walmart Buy a Shopping Mall? (The New York Times)
Nike is launching its first U.S. “World of Flight” flagship store dedicated to the Michael Jordan brand. Opening October 10 at 1617 Walnut Street in Philadelphia’s historic district, the store joins a lineup that includes World of Flight flagship stores in Milan, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Mexico City.
The new World of Flight flagship store in Philadelphia is about 7,000 square feet on two-levels.
World of Flight is meant to be a next-gen “destination retail” experience combining culture, story, exclusivity, comfort and artistry in a way that ordinary Nike or other smaller Jordan stores don’t typically attempt. The typical Nike Jordan stores—mostly operating in China and parts of Asia—have broader product range (performance, sport, running, casual) rather than a deep focus on Michael Jordan himself and the basketball culture.
Michael Jordan played his last NBA game in Philadelphia in 2003.
Read more: Nike’s Jordan Brand Lands Its First U.S. ‘World Of Flight’ Store In Philadelphia (Forbes)
So far this year, Dickey's Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. has opened 46 new locations across 17 U.S. states and internationally. Two of those are in Canada (Markham, Ontario and Sherwood Park, Alberta) and one is in Manila, the Philippines at Parqal Mall near City of Dreams (Parañaque City).
The new Philippines Dickey’s follows other openings in previous years in Southeast Asia, including Japan and Singapore.
Add the announced openings for the fourth quarter to these new locations already open, and Dickey’s will achieve more than 60 new openings in 2025.
Founded in 1941 by the Dickey family, Dickey's Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. is the world’s largest barbecue concept and continues as a third-generation family-run business.
Roland Dickey, Jr., grandson of founder Travis Dickey, is the CEO of Dickey's Capital Group (DCG). Laura Rea Dickey is CEO of Dickey's Barbecue Restaurants, Inc.
DCG is the holding company that oversees the entire Dickey family portfolio of businesses, including the Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants chain, as well as other ventures such as retail products, manufacturers, real estate holdings and technology companies.
By year-end, there will be 400 Dickey’s fast casual restaurants worldwide. However, Dickey’s Barbecue Franchise and Dickey’s Restaurant Brands operate more than 866 restaurants across eight concepts in the U.S. and several countries.
Sprouts Farmers Market continues to expand. It aims to grow from 450 to 1,400 stores across the U.S. The chain is focused on health-conscious consumers, according to CEO Jack Sinclair, who emphasized the need for new distribution centers to support the expansion.
Sprouts has recently opened stores in Maryland, Tennessee, Texas and Utah, among other states and plans to add at least 35 more by year-end.
Read more: Sprouts hopes to grow from 450 stores to about 1,400 (Modern Retail)
DICK'S Sporting Goods has opened the first House of Sport in the New York area at Simon Property Group's Newport Centre in Jersey City, N.J. At 85,000 square feet, the Jersey City location is the smallest House of Sport store, given that most are larger than 100,000 square feet.
Like other House of Sport stores, the Jersey City location offers a climbing wall, multiple golf bays with TrackMan simulators, and a multi-sport cage that can be used for baseball, softball, lacrosse, soccer and field hockey. Customers can easily get to Jersey City from NYC via the PATH train or NY Waterway ferry.
According to DICK'S EVP Toni Roeller, the Jersey City location is the second urban location for House of Sport after the first one opened in the Pru Center in Boston. It is very difficult to find large available locations in urban areas.
There are 26 House of Sport locations in the U.S. The Jersey City location is one of about 16 House of Sport locations opening in 2025. The other new House of Sport locations that opened so far this year are in Dadeland Mall near Miami, Fla.; Mall at Fairfield Commons in Beavercreek, Ohio (a suburb of Dayton); Polaris Fashion Place near Columbus, Ohio; the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge, La.; Town Center Plaza in Leawood, Kan.; and at a strip center just off the Galleria Dallas mixed-use complex.
Upcoming locations for House of Sport include Frisco, Texas (north of Dallas at Stonebriar Centre’s former Sears site), the Westgate Entertainment District in the Glendale, Arizona (Phoenix area), Cherry Hill Mall in Cherry Hill, New Jersey near Philadelphia, and The Parks Mall at Arlington (south of Dallas) replacing a former Sears store.
Read more: Dick’s Brings Its Massive House of Sport Retail Concept to NYC Area (Women’s Wear Daily)
If you are in the process of planning staffing and holiday hours for the upcoming busy holiday season, Sensormatic Solutions predicts U.S. in-store traffic for the holiday season will be about the same as last year. Predicted foot traffic ranked in order from highest to tenth highest in 2025 are:
Nov. 28 (Black Friday)
Dec. 20 (Super Saturday)
Dec. 13 (Second Saturday in December)
Dec. 21 (Super Sunday)
Dec. 26 (Boxing Day)
Nov. 29 (Saturday after Thanksgiving)
Dec. 23 (Tuesday before Christmas)
Dec. 6 (First Saturday in December)
Dec. 27 (Saturday after Christmas)
Dec. 19 (Friday before Christmas)
The Friday after Thanksgiving, the last Saturday before Christmas and the two to three Saturdays leading up to Christmas are almost always the top shopping days in terms of foot traffic. In 2025, as in previous years, Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and Super Saturday (the Saturday before Christmas) will be the busiest shopping days of the year.
Sometimes Super Saturday surpasses Black Friday in total retail sales, especially in years when Christmas falls on a Monday or Tuesday. In fact, when Christmas falls on Monday, Super Saturday is referred to as Panic Saturday because it’s the last full shopping day before Christmas Eve. In 2025, Christmas falls on Thursday.
Last year, there were 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2025, we will experience a similar length of the traditional shopping season as last year with 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so just one extra day of shopping.
The span between Thanksgiving (4th Thursday in November) and Christmas (always on Dec. 25) can vary depending on the calendar. The shortest gap is 26 days when Thanksgiving falls on its latest possible date, which is November 28. That's what we experienced in 2024. The maximum number of days is 32 when Thanksgiving falls on the earliest possible Thursday in November. That’s nearly an extra week of holiday shopping compared to the shortest years.
Monos, the Canadian luggage, tote bags, accessories and apparel brand is opening new stores for the first time south of the Canada-U.S. border.
The brand recently opened a store in Boston on Newbury Street, another in Los Angeles on Abbot Kinney Blvd. in Venice, and in Chicago's Fulton Market District (West Loop) on N. Morgan St.
Later we will see Monos stores opening in SoHo in New York City, in October, and then in December in Washington, D.C. on M St. NW, in a space that was formerly occupied by Atmos Sneakers.
The Chicago 2,800-sq.-ft.-location is a new concept for Monos called Postcard, which serves as the brand’s entrance into in-store food and beverage services with operating hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven-day-a-week.
The chain also operates two other stores in Canada; one in Vancouver and one in Toronto.
Monos had more than $150 million in sales last year with three-quarters of the revenue coming from the U.S. via online orders. The company was co-founded in 2018 by Victor Tam and Hubert Chan. Monos, prior to opening stores has been selling products online and shipping them all over the world.
The market for luggage has become much more competitive, according to Beth Goldstein, an industry analyst at Circana. Brands like Away, July, BÉIS and Dagne Dover are all competing with Samsonite, TravelPro and TUMI. There are others. CALPAK opened its first store at Westfield Century City in late 2024, and RIMOWA, which is owned by LVMH, has locations in Beverly Hills, Miami, New York City and San Francisco.
Read more: Canadian luggage brand Monos is opening its first stores in the U.S. (Modern Retail)
One of the most sought after tenants in the era where entertainment is vital to retail projects, Pinstripes Holdings, Inc. abruptly closed 10 of its 18 locations around the country this week.
The popular bowling-dining-entertainment chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware reporting about $162.9 million in assets and a little over $258.6 million in debt. The bankruptcy court is looking to sell the remaining locations as well as those closed, which could reopen under new ownership.
Locations shuttered include Walnut Creek, Calif. at Broadway Plaza, Chicago at River East / Streeterville, Orlando at the Vineland Pointe Plaza, Overland Park, Kan. at Prairiefire, Fort Worth in the Trailhead / Clearfork area, Houston, Texas at Kirby, Norwalk, Conn. at The SoNo Collection, and Paramus, N.J. at Westfield Garden State Plaza.
Locations still open are Pike & Rose in Bethesda, Md.; Georgetown in Washington, D.C.; San Mateo, Calif.; Cleveland, Ohio; Edina, Minn.; and in the Chicago area in Northbrook, Oak Brook, and South Barrington.
Pinstripes locations range between 26,000 and 38,000 square feet of interior space. The concept offers bowling alleys, indoor and outdoor dining, bocce courts, firepits and party venues. Each location can hold 900 guests, including 300 diners, according to court filings.
Pinstripes went public less than two years ago through Banyan Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company that spun off Pinstripes as a wholly owned subsidiary hoping to open as many as 150 units. Each location averages about $7.4 million in annual revenue, but its annual revenue has not been able to meet its debt service.
Throughout its 40-year history, Potbelly Sandwich Works has grown to 445 units—including more than 105 franchised shops—with the ultimate goal of expanding to 2,000 units.
That goal seemed far fetched until now. With an acquisition agreement signed by Potbelly’s board of directors this week, the sandwich chain can eventually more than quadruple its unit count but under new ownership by RaceTrac, Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the United States and a leading convenience store operator.
Under the terms of the agreement, Hero Sub Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of RaceTrac, will commence a tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of Potbelly in cash at a 47% premium to Potbelly’s 90-trading-day average share price. All of Potbelly’s directors and executive officers have agreed to tender their shares, representing approximately 11% of Potbelly’s outstanding common stock.
Potbelly first went public in 2013. As of the announcement, Potbelly brings to the deal signed agreements with franchisees to open 371 additional units notwithstanding the acquisition.
Hero Sub, Inc. is not an operational sandwich shop, but rather a temporary subsidiary that RaceTrac created for its acquisition of Potbelly. Upon completion of the acquisition, Hero Sub will merge into Potbelly, and Potbelly will continue to operate as a separate restaurant brand but as a wholly-owned subsidiary of RaceTrac.
RaceTrac operates more than 800 c-stores across 14 states under the RaceTrac and RaceWay brands, as well as operating approximately 1,200 Gulf-branded gas stations across the United States and Puerto Rico.
Potbelly President and CEO Robert "Bob" Wright told The Wall Street Journal, which first broke the story, that their strategy isn’t necessarily to put a Potbelly in every RaceTrac. RaceTrac appears to be moving away from a pure-play c-store operator and becoming more of a conglomerate of consumer brands.
Read more: Sandwich chain Potbelly looks to fuel expansion with new owner RaceTrac (CoStar News)
Leasing and marketing professionals are combining forces to create customized pitch decks to pursue the most sought-after retail tenants. These pitch decks are not generic mall promos; they focus solely on how a particular retailer or restaurant is suited to a specific shopping center location.
Highly desirable retailers already know the markets they want to be in, the types of retail locations they prefer, the co-tenancy they seek, and the customers they serve. They are often aware of where their customers live, shop and spend time, and they recognize the best, second best and worst-performing shopping centers in the trade areas where they intend to open new stores.
What they don’t necessarily know is how a specific shopping center aligns with their goals. They may know the basics: trade area by radius, center size, age and other details that are widely available through trade publications and other third-party data providers. The pitch deck should help prospects see how their store fits perfectly into a specific property, why it makes sense for the retailer’s expansion strategy, and why that shopping center is the best choice above all others.
Mobile location data now enables marketers to clearly illustrate marketplace gaps and brand penetration weaknesses. In creating pitch decks, marketers should gather location-based research that shows performance of the retailer’s other stores and how that relates to their center and the trade area in which that center is located. For example, demographics, annual household income data, length of shopper visits, visit frequency, trade area overlap, etc., should be included.
Another key selling point to include in a pitch desk is available from the Directory of Major Malls / ShoppingCenters.com. Its collaborative platform allows marketing professionals to define their shopping center’s top PRIZM Premier Segments (by Claritas), to identify the proper fit for retail tenancy.
“If you work in commercial real estate, shopping center management or retail leasing, (the guide recently published in ShoppingCenters.com) is your playbook for maximizing occupancy and attracting the right brands,” Tama Shor, publisher of Directory of Major Malls / ShoppingCenters.com wrote on a recent LinkedIn post. “Getting retailers like Nike, Lululemon, AllSaints and Warby Parker into your property isn’t luck — it’s strategy,” she added.
Starbucks is slowing down major store renovations and development to redeploy about $150,000 per store in an effort to quickly upgrade about 1,000 stores across the U.S.
The program—underway already in the New York area and in Southern California—will be completed by the end of 2026. Most of these upgrades can be accomplished after store hours to avoid having to close stores down for construction.
The new minor renovations reverse Starbucks’ previous years’ decisions like removing seats in favor of mobile ordering for instore pickup and getting rid of outlets to discourage lingering. Seats with accessible electric outlets are being added as well as wood finishes, area rugs and warmer lighting. Brian Niccol said he plans to add back the 30,000 seats that Starbucks had removed from its cafes before he took over as the new CEO a year ago.
Dawn Clark, Starbucks senior vice president of coffeehouse design and concepts, said the new design is intended to encourage customers to stay longer, connect more and return often.
Dillard's, with a market capitalization of $8.3 billion, has maximized revenue from its retail operations in a dwindling department store sector.
Its recent JV acquisition of Longview Mall with Trademark Property Company shows the company is looking for new revenue sources. Why not expand its business into real estate, particularly retail real estate, which is closely related to Dillard’s expertise and at the same time ensure the long-term potential of its good store locations?
Persistently high interest rates have driven the U.S. middle class—generally considered to include households making $53,000 to $161,000 a year—to trade down on their purchases and shop at discounters.
Many stores and restaurants recognize this trend and are catering to these customers with specials including IHOP, McDonald's and Walmart.
The three most rapidly expanding chains in 2025: ALDI USA and the two big dollar-store chains.
Aldi is now the third-largest grocery chain by store count in the U.S., with more than 2,500 locations. Nearly half of this year’s 200 store openings will be conversions of former Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket locations. Aldi acquired the two chains in 2023.
Aldi plans to open more than 800 additional stores by the end of 2028.
Aldi is smaller than a traditional American grocery store and to deliver low prices, about 90% of the items it sells are private label merchandise. Aldi store sizes tend to fall in the 12,000–20,000 sq. ft. range while traditional supermarkets are about 40,000 sq. ft. or larger. Aldi carries around 1,400 items, versus about 40,000 at traditional supermarkets.
Supermarkets are very different from big-box formats like Walmart Supercenters ~ 178,000 sq. ft. (range 69K–260K sq. ft.) or Costco Wholesale ~ 140,000 sq. ft. (range 76K–240K sq. ft.) vastly larger.
The “Aldi Finds” aisle is a rotating hodgepodge of discounted items, similar to its competitor Lidl US, another German grocery chain expanding in the U.S.
Aldi’s appeal is similar to the “treasure hunt” shopping experience at discount retailers such as The TJX Companies, Inc. store brands, Burlington Stores, Inc. and Five Below, which have also been opening many new stores in the 2020s.
Read more: Aldi Wants to Conquer the American Grocery Store Landscape (The Wall Street Journal)
Chicken per capita consumption overtook beef back in 1993, according to Technomic, Inc., and today, the USDA estimates people eat about twice the amount of chicken in the U.S. than beef or pork.
Some cite costs and health reasons for the changes in preferences but definitely costs have increased significantly in recent times to push restaurants to provide more chicken menu choices because beef is less profitable. Around 93% of restaurant operators of all kinds include chicken on their menus.
Sales at chicken chains grew 8.9% in 2024 compared with 2023, while burger restaurant chain sales grew 1.4%, according to Technomic. Chicken now delivers more than $53 billion in annual sales for U.S. fast-food restaurants that specialize in poultry.
Chick-fil-A Restaurants’ multilane drive-throughs concept has made the chain, the third-biggest U.S. restaurant chain by domestic sales. Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen launched its own version of the Chick-fil-A sandwich in 2019, kicking off fast food’s chicken sandwich wars, and chains from McDonald's to Shake Shack hustled to add their own.
Now, Taco Bell is developing a whole menu of crispy chicken tacos, burritos and nuggets, and Wendy's is launching new tenders later this year. McDonald’s rolled out its own chicken tenders in May, and afterwards added chicken Snack Wraps.
Hot spicy chicken chains are growing their footprints too. Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers’s, with its chicken fingers-centric menu, aims to add 100 locations this year. Wingstop Restaurants Inc. in February launched crispy tenders to its menu and will open approximately 435 to 460 net new stores in 2025 by year-end.
Read more: Welcome to the Fast-Food Industry’s Crispy Chicken Summer (The Wall Street Journal)
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