Because 2020 is weird: A brick-and-mortar concept focused on digital sales

Chipotle will open its first Chipotle Digital Kitchen — in Highland Falls, N.Y. — this weekend. The concept, pictured above, has no dining room or service line. Guests must order — via website, app or third-party delivery system — in advance for pickup or delivery. The prototype will allow Chipotle to enter more urban areas that wouldn't support a full-size restaurant, and it allows flexibility with future locations. “With digital sales tripling year over year last quarter, consumers are demanding more digital access than ever before,” said chief technology officer Curt Garner.

Retailer within a retailer: Behind the latest symbiotic relationships

Ulta Beauty-branded cosmetics shops will open within 100 Target stores. Ulta Beauty shoppers can use Target’s curbside pickup and same-day delivery services, and Target employees will be trained as Ulta Beauty consultants. During COVID-19, Target’s sales have skyrocketed while Ulta Beauty has struggled. The beauty retailer’s leaders believe this decision, along with changing consumer trends and increased purchases of self-care items, will help it succeed. The deal is reminiscent of Sephora boutiques opening in most JCPenney stores.

Meanwhile, direct-to-consumer brand Casper will sell mattresses in Nordstrom stores, boosting the Seattle department store chain’s home furnishings offering. The deal gives Casper, which aims to cut back on marketing expenses, access to a customer base beyond its 30 owned stores in major markets.

Feathering their nests

Consumers dedicating more of their disposable incomes to the spaces where they’re spending most of their time these days: home. Along the way, decor, furnishing and kitchen chains have been growing.

UK retailer Wren Kitchens opened its first U.S. store, a 31,456-square-foot, $15.4 million showroom in Milford, Connecticut. The company plans to open another five stores in the Northeast U.S. by 2021. German kitchenware conglomerate Zwilling J. A. Henckels will open a factory outlet store this month in each Chicago, Orlando and Vacaville, California. In January, it also will open a 1,067-square-foot, full-price store at Santa Monica Place. The stores will sell cookware, cutlery, glassware, flatware and kitchen tools. And home and office furnishings brand Herman Miller has opened its first store, at Los Angeles’ Westfield Century City. The company will open a second store at The Shops at Hudson Yards in New York City on Nov. 20. More locations are planned across the U.S. in 2021.

More hot takes from retailers

Tween clothing brand Justice will shutter all locations by early 2021, and parent company Ascena Retail Group has sold the brand’s intellectual property to Justice Brand Holdings, an entity formed by brand management company Bluestar Alliance, for $90 million.

A court approved J. C. Penney Co.’s deal to restructure its business and reemerge from bankruptcy protection. H/2 Capital Partners will take over 160 locations and six distribution centers in exchange for forgiving $1 billion of J. C. Penney’s debt. Shopping centerall owners Simon and Brookfield Property Partners will take the remainder of the department store chain’s locations and operations for $1.75 billion.

Bebe Stores Inc. bought the 47-store Buddy’s Home Furnishings rent-to-own franchise from Franchise Group for $35 million. Bebe Stores, which once focused exclusively on young women’s apparel and shuttered all its stores in 2017 to focus on its online business, also owns the intellectual property of defunct gadget retailer Brookstone.

Amazon is expanding a palm-recognition payment technology into three more Seattle-area stores. Amazon piloted the technology, called Amazon One, in two cashierless Amazon Go stores in Seattle this year. Customers link their handprints to credit cards or Amazon accounts and then pay by waving their hands over scanners. Amazon is marketing the Amazon One service to retailers, stadiums and office buildings. It also could add the functionality to some of Amazon’s Whole Foods grocery stores. Once customers register, their handprints work at every Amazon One terminal.

The latest retail development updates

The San Diego City Council has given Regency Centers and biotech office builder Alexandria permission to overhaul Costa Verde Center, opposite the Westfield UTC. The redo, expected to deliver by 2023, calls for 178,000 square feet of retail, 400,000 square feet of office and a 200-room hotel. The project will connect to a trolley station that is under construction.

A partnership that began at RECon in 2019 plans to redevelop Gallatin Valley Mall in Bozeman, Montana, into a Main Street-style development to accommodate the state’s first Whole Foods store. Boston Realty Advisors/The Broadway Cos. and Grossman Development Group are partnering with the owners of the Montana shopping center on the multiphase redevelopment.

Dormant malls are becoming e-commerce distribution hubs. In Akron, Ohio, Amazon opened a 640,000-square-foot distribution center at the former Rolling Acres Mall. And Knoxville, Tennessee’s City Council has rezoned the former Knoxville Center Mall to become a $40-million e-commerce and fulfillment center.

Mall owners continue to welcome new uses to empty department store anchors. At Oakdale Mall in Johnson City, New York, storage company T K Storage will move into an anchor store that Bon-Ton had occupied until August 2018.

Cardinal Capital Group is developing a $2.5 million, 9,600-square-foot neighborhood center called Dakota Square on the site of a former automobile dealership in South Sioux City, Nebraska, across the river from Sioux City, Iowa. Tenants will include Jimmy John’s, Greek To Me and J Nails. The center will open next year.

Rebkee Co. and Thalhimer Realty Partners bought the JCPenney anchor store at Regency mall in Richmond, Virginia, from the retailer for $3.1 million. The developers now own all the anchor spaces at the mall, including two Macy’s spots and a Sears. For those spots, the owners’ plans include an indoor trampoline park, an aquatics center and apartments. They’re also now in talks for new users for the JCPenney space, which will close at year’s end.