What a long, strange trip...

...it's been.

I've been digging into a case in Salt Lake City and so have been relocating, but I'm still alive, and so is this blog.

Two items from Seattle: 1. American Eagle opens it's new, 12,000 sf store at Sixth and Pike in two weeks, and 2. QFC is moving its Queen Anne store over to 500 Mercer, where Tower Records used to be. Is retail action shifting north into the Regrade? Could Paul Allen be encouraging a corridor to his South Lake Union properties?

Concerning the QFC move, the new store will be over twice as big as the current one and will anchor a 150,000 sf retail/condo mixed development. Landstar Real Estate LLC is the developer (Let's start making book right now on whether Groff & DeWalt, Barker-Martin, or Levin & Stein will be filing the inevitable condo owners' suit against Landstar.). The property where the current store sits, owned by Burkheimer Family LLC, was appraised this year at $4.8 million. Yeah, right. Let's see if a Vulcan subsidiary gets it at a fire sale.