PrimoHoagies Brings Focus to Florida The fast casual brand that features specialty sandwiches has their eyes set on Florida after hitting their 100-location milestone earlier this year. PrimoHoagies already has locations in Fort Lauderdale, Naples, and Tallahassee so far but they plan to expand significantly. The goal is to have at least 120 stores by the end of 2023 and aims to add 300 to 350 new stores across 25 states in the next five years. (NJ Biz 9/14) [Read]

Great Greek Continues Momentum The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill has opened 8 new restaurants in 2023 and has an additional 26 new franchise agreements to develop locations in states like Florida, Texas, and Alabama. They currently have 31 open locations in 11 states with 20 more projected to open by the end of 2023 and an additional 280 stores in the development pipeline. (QSRWeb.com 9/20) [Read]

Savvy Sliders Enters Florida The Michigan-based quick-serve restaurant opened its first Florida location in Tamarac City recently. The location is 2,300 square feet and operates 24 hours a day. Savvy Sliders operates 35 locations currently and is expanding in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. (QSRWeb.com 9/20) [Read]

Ellianos Coffee Opens in Newberry The southeast-based drive-thru specialty coffee brand has opened their location in Newberry, Florida, as the company continues to expand its footprint. Ellianos has built a reputation of serving top-quality coffee and providing exceptional customer service which will be important as the company looks to grow further into Florida, Georgia, and exploring new opportunities in Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. (QSR Magazine 9/20) [Read]

Costco Delivers Strong Q4 The company points to rising store traffic as a key reason for beating top and bottom line estimates even as average transaction levels dropped. Despite a weakness in big-ticket items and discretionary purchases, net revenue still rose 9.5% and membership fees collected rose 13.7%. Costco’s average transaction fell 4.5% while foot traffic increased 5% year over year. The company also plans to open 9 new U.S. stores in the next three months after opening 5 in Q4. (Chain Store Age 9/27) [Read]

Home Depot and Lowe’s Remain Resilient Home Depot sales fell 2% but was better than the expected 3.9% drop, while Lowe’s reported earnings per share that beat estimates. Online sales for both retailers grew last quarter, Home Depot up 1% and Lowe’s up 6.9%. CEOs for both companies are optimistic for a rebound in the home-improvement industry as mortgage rates level out in the mid-to-long-term outlook. (Trepp 9/20) [Read]

Rite Aid could Lose 400-500 Locations Potential bankruptcy could bring a wave of closings for the struggling drug store chain. Part of their bankruptcy plan includes store liquidations that would amount to anywhere from 400 to 500 store closures and would either sell or let creditors take over the remaining store’s operations. It was reported in August that Rite Aid was preparing for bankruptcy and now it seems like that will be their expected move in the near future. (Chain Store Age 9/25) [Read]

Retailers at Risk After seeing bankruptcies such as Bed Bath & Beyond, Party City, and David’s Bridal, Moody’s Investor Service is saying that defaults in retail will continue to rise in the next 12 months. Citing weakening consumer spending and higher product, labor, and freight costs as reasons for the anticipated rise in bankruptcies. Some of the most at-risk retailers they pointed out are Joann, Rite Aid, Big Lots, and Kirkland’s among some others. (Retail Dive 10/2) [Read]

Tyrone Square Mall Retail Strip Sells for $37.8M Boston Capital purchased the roughly 125,000-square-foot recently constructed strip portion of Tyrone Square Mall that includes Dick’s Sporting Goods, PetSmart, Five Below, and Aldi. Seritage Growth Properties was the seller. The deal closed September 21^st. (Tampa Bay Business & Wealth 9/22) [Read]

Plaza La Mer Sells for $27.13M The shopping center was sold by Delray Property Investments to Bucksbaum Properties for $409 per square foot. It last traded for $3.6M in 1993. (South Florida Business Journal 9/12) [Read]

Intracoastal Plaza Sells for $25.25M Jacksonville-based Ash Properties bought the Publix-anchored shopping center that includes the 62,000-square-foot Publix and nearly 100,000 square feet of medical and other users for $25.25M. The seller paid $25.7M for the property back in 2016. (Jacksonville Daily Record 9/25) [Read] 

The Grove at Winter Park Sells for $24.7M TriOut Advisory Group sold the nearly 113,000-square-foot shopping center to JBL Asset Management for roughly $219 per square foot after having the property on the market for over 9 months. TriOut acquired the property back in May 2019 for $18.08M. (Orlando Business Journal 9/15) [Read]

Ocean Walk Sells for $19.2M A joint venture between Related Group and BH Group paid $19.2M for the 65,908-square-foot shopping center’s ground lease from Pebb Enterprises. Pebb paid $7.5M for the ground lease back in 2017 and drove the occupancy rate from 53% to 100% prior to this sale. JLL represented Pebb Capital in this transaction. (The Real Deal 9/25) [Read]

Halloween Spending to Top $12B According to the National Retail Federation, 73% of Americans will take part in Halloween festivities this year, a 4% increase over last year. Per person spending is expected to hit a new high of $108.24 which contributes to the Halloween spending increase from $10.6B last year to $12.2B this year. Shopping trends are also showing that spending for Halloween is starting earlier than usual with 45% of surveyed people starting their spending before October. 

(Fibre2Fashion 9/24) [Read]

Holiday Spending Expected to Rise According to a recent survey, U.S. retail sales during the Nov. 1 - Dec. 24 holiday season are expected to rise by 3.7% year over year. This increase brings us back closer to pre-pandemic levels as the past two years have seen higher than average holiday spending due to the instabilities in our environment. Consumers also state high interest rates, gas prices, and student loan repayments are contributing factors in their spending. (Yahoo Finance 9/19) [Read]

Restaurant Real Estate Demand Skyrockets Placer.ai and JLL data shows demand for drive-thru locations is significantly rising. Despite the restaurant segment seeing down sales, the market is still seeing plenty of attention for new opportunities. Looking deeper, however, shows that the specialty coffee segment outpaced every other restaurant segment in 2022 and has shown positive foot traffic trends in the last two months which is driving a lot of drive-thru demand. (Nation’s Restaurant News 9/22) [Read]