— By Mike Rosen — How your parking lot can drive down operating costs. Of all the areas you’re responsible to maintain, the parking lot is one of the largest. And, in the fast-paced retail and restaurant industry, it isn’t always convenient to make repairs to it. This is a significant challenge for c-stores in particular where downtime is especially costly. How do I know? Recently, I had the privilege of attending the National Leadership Conference for a leading retailer of gasoline and convenience merchandise. My participation gave me …
— By Charlie Slater — Consistent elevator & escalator maintenance is helpful to the bottom line. It’s no secret that elevators and escalators are essential to a building. They provide the building’s occupants safe and efficient vertical transportation to their desired location. With these conveyances being relied on by hundreds — if not thousands — of people in a single building on a given day, their safety is on the line. This means that building owners and facility managers cannot be too cautious when it comes to having their …
Houston — The Rustic plans to bring its farm-fresh fare and Texas-sized selection of wine, spirits and beer, served alongside live music 7 days a week, to the west side of Houston. Located at 1121 Uptown Park Blvd. in Houston’s Uptown Park, the 27,000-square-foot venue broke ground on Aug. 1 and is anticipated to open in February 2020. The Rustic is the brainchild of Kyle Noonan, Josh Sepkowitz and Texas country artist Pat Green, whose love of the outdoors and live music helped bring The Rustic to life. The result …
Plano, Texas — J. C. Penney Company, Inc. has hired James (Jim) DePaul, a highly accomplished field executive with nearly 25 years of retail experience, as executive vice president of stores, effective August 5, reporting directly to CEO Jill Soltau. He joins JCPenney from Shopko. DePaul, who will oversee the company’s stores, store operations, store environment and design and asset protection teams, will be responsible for improving in-store and omnichannel operations. Mike Robbins, executive vice president of stores and supply chain, will be leaving the organization on August 3, 2019. …
New York City — Mamoun’s Falafel, the fastest growing Middle Eastern fast-casual restaurant in North America, has opened its fifth location in New Jersey, with plans for two more to open by the end of the year. The new restaurant, located at the Wall Promenade shopping center in Wall, N.J., marks the 10th location nationwide. The concept’s New Jersey partner, Prospect Capital Restaurants, signed a multi-unit franchise agreement to continue bringing Mamoun’s Falafel throughout the state of New Jersey. Prospect Capital Restaurants is responsible for existing franchise locations in Wall …
Fort Myers, Fla. — GATES Construction has completed multiple projects at Daniels Marketplace located at the crossing of Daniels and Six Mile Cypress parkways in Fort Myers, Fla. The project buildouts include Club Pilates, Paradise Grill, Tide Dry Cleaners, Uh-Maze Bowls, Pearle Vision and Hand & Stone Spa. Design services are provided by Wakefield Beasley & Associates and Hand & Stone Franchise Corp. For over 25 years, GATES has provided construction management, general contracting and design-build services. Its diverse portfolio of commercial, healthcare, multi-family, club and hospitality, institutional and special …
Louisville, Ky. — Yum! Brands, Inc. has appointed Taco Bell division and Pizza Hut division chief executive officers, who each will assume global responsibility for driving their respective brand’s growth strategies, franchise operations and performance. Now, each of the company’s three global brand divisions will be led by a CEO. Mark King, former president of adidas Group North America, will join the company as Taco Bell division CEO, reporting to David Gibbs, president, COO and CFO, Yum! Brands. King brings extensive retail experience and an excellent track record driving growth, …
Pittsburgh — The vitamin and health supplement niche of the brick-and-mortar retail market continues to experience intense competitive pressure, observes veteran retail consultant Jeff Green. So it came as no surprise to Green when GNC Holdings Inc. officials revealed in a second-quarter earnings call earlier this week that it will shutter up to 900 stores in North America by the end of 2020. “It used to be that specialty health supplements were only found in specialty stores such as GNC, Vitamin Shoppe and other regional chains,” says Green, a partner …
— By Ted Stouch — The financial benefits of converting parking lot lighting to LED. Anyone who has been in any part of the facility business, for even a short amount of time, has read, talked about or spoken to someone on the benefits of converting their facilities’ lighting to LED. For those of us on the service and project side of LED retrofits, we talk about the same concepts over and over. Retrofitting to LEDs will save on energy consumption, save on maintenance, and your lighting performance will …
— By Megan Varano — Changing the game from reactive to proactive facility maintenance protocols. The last decade-plus has brought tremendous change in the FM industry. It’s been thrilling to be part of the evolution. Working on both the retail and the service sides has given me a unique perspective on both the challenges and the opportunities. I started out managing work requests on pieces of paper. The dispatcher would take a phone call or read an e-mail and then write out the dispatch to the field; the work request …