Retailing Locations

Projecting a Powerful Retail Identity at the Airport

As a visual merchandiser for a wide range of retailers, I often find myself talking with retailers about their businesses, focusing in on what retailers really sell. Products are exchanged between retailers and their customers, yes, but what's really being sold isn't sitting on the shelf.

Airport Retail 101: Your Top 15 FAQs Answered

Do I need a business plan and sales history to land a spot in an airport's specialty leasing program? What's the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when pitching their concept? Answers to your top 10 airport retail FAQs from an insider who knows what it takes for an airport concept to take flight.

On Location in Las Vegas

With a constant stream of new money and some of the biggest and blingy-est retail properties in the country, it's no wonder that when it comes to specialty retail, Vegas is hot--and getting hotter.

Boost Your Capture Power

A statistical, research-based look at what it takes to succeed in the middle of the mall.

San Jose: Power Market

Great weather, an affluent customer base and terrific shopping centers make San Jose the place to be.

Bling My Program!

While TV has been busy documenting makeovers of everything from homes to human beings, a Virginia shopping center has created its own total makeover—on all of its RMUs.

A premier shopping destination with one million square feet of retail space in the heart of Norfolk's revitalized historic downtown, MacArthur Center recently created new visual bling for its already successful RMU (retail merchandising unit) program.

On Location in Baltimore

With a record 17 million tourists visiting Baltimore in 2005—and more importantly, with their spending at a record high of $3 billion—Charm City is vastly different than it was just a decade ago. The city has become a major player in the conventions market, and exciting shopping and entertainment developments now dot the landscape—some built from the ground up and others redevelopments or expansions of existing centers.

Who's Your Anchor?

When a mall loses its anchor or undergoes renovation, specialty retailers need management cooperation to keep from going adrift.

Daniel Parks had barely moved his Fifth Avenue women's accessory business into Danbury Fair Mall when Federated Department Stores shuttered one of the center's five major anchors, a 172,000-square-foot Filene's. In addition, another of the Danbury, CT, mall's anchors, Lord & Taylor, faces an uncertain future. In June NRDC Equity Partners agreed to buy the 48-store chain, but as of this writing it's unclear what plans the company has for the brand and there has been talk on the street about some stores closing. A closure of the Danbury Fair Lord & Taylor would leave a second gaping hole in the 1.5-million-square-foot center, owned by the Macerich Co. of Santa Monica, CA. The remaining anchors—JCPenney, Sears and Macy's—appear safe.

In a May, 2006 conference call, J.C. Penney Chairman & CEO Mike Ullman told analysts the company "plans to open 50 new stores annually, beginning in 2007, primarily in our successful off-mall format."

Airport Retail

In 2000, Bruce McCorvey opened his first airport location for Miami-based Better Vision Group, which primarily sells reading glasses. Today he has three retail merchandise units, two at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and one at Washington-Dulles International Airport, and he's looking to open a fourth in George Bush Intercontinental Airport/Houston.

New Orleans' Fleur-de-lis Spirit

In the months after Katrina, the historic hurricane that made landfall in southeast Louisiana on August 29, 2005 packing sustained winds of 125 miles an hour, one local symbol, the fleur-de-lis, began popping up everywhere. A common feature in New Orleans art and architecture, and part of the official flag of New Orleans and the NFL's New Orleans Saints logo, the fleur-de-lis quickly became the city's ad-hoc symbol of hope for the future.