On Monday, I participated in a online panel for The OpEd Project. I was one of two speakers that talked about Twitter best practices with fellows and university staff from Yale University and Dartmouth College.
It was great to be apart of the group.
I’m looking forward to being apart of more of these discussions.
I’m excited to say It’s now official: I’m now the assistant projects editor for the Herald-Tribune Media Group.
In my new role, I manage social media and audience engagement duties on special projects and will be the editor of a new publication geared toward young professionals in Sarasota, which launches later this year. I’m very grateful to step into a leadership role in the newsroom and be a part of the cool projects the talented Herald-Tribune staff keep coming up with.
I will continue to be a business reporter, covering retail and tourism, too.
Read more about what I do at the Herald-Tribune under the resume tab.
Life is good!
BRADENTON – After just a year and a half of ownership, DeSoto Square Mall’s owner is taking a shot at selling the dilapidated retail center at auction.
The 680,271-square-foot mall in Bradenton, anchored by Macy’s, J.C. Penney and Sears, is listed on websites like auction. com with a starting bid of $9 million for the entire 73.5-acre parcel.
In February, Hudson’s Furniture took over the former Dillard’s two-story, 110,000-square-foot space.
The auction advertisement from Great Neck, New York-based Mason Asset Management claims that DeSoto Square Mall is 30 miles south of downtown Tampa and “services a dense and mature trade area in excess of 500,000 residents who possess above average income levels.”
The auction is scheduled to begin in about a month.
“The word ‘auction’ denotes a certain amount of desperation,” said Barry Seidel, the president of American Property Group of Sarasota Inc. “It means they weren’t able to sell the center in a traditional method, so this is the alternative.”
Read more here.
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Additional Desoto Square Mall coverage:
Desoto Square’s future in flux, Aug. 1, 2014
The future of DeSoto Square Mall was up in the air, a day after an online auction closed and Macy’s, the property’s premier tenant, announced an exit plan.
Highest bid for Desoto Square Mall: $33.75 million, July 31, 2014
An auction to sell off Bradenton’s DeSoto Square Mall closed Thursday with the highest bid at $33.75 million — on the same day the retail center’s premier anchor, Macy’s, announced it would be vacating for good.
$10 million bid for Desoto Square Mall, July 30, 2014
DeSoto Square Mall may have attracted a potential buyer two days into its three-day online auction. The Bradenton mall had a current bid of $10 million at the end of the second day of the auction period, which began on Tuesday.
Hudson Furniture moving into Desoto Square, Feb. 15, 2014
A Florida-based furniture chain will take over the former Dillard’s department store anchor space at DeSoto Square Mall in April.
Hudson’s Furniture, an Ormond Beach-based furniture-and-home-furnishings retailer with stores in the Tampa Bay, Orlando and Ormond Beach markets, will open a two-story, 110,000-square-foot store in DeSoto Square Mall.
Desoto Square changes little after sale, Nov. 12, 2013
It’s been nearly a year since Simon Property Group sold the ailing DeSoto Square Mall in Bradenton.
And in a year’s time, new owners Mason Asset Management hasn’t done a whole lot to update the mall and its perception in the community, despite a successful track record of taking older properties similar to DeSoto Square and giving them a facelift.
My story about a new mall in development in Sarasota was featured on Jim Romenesko because of its unique design in print.
The Herald-Tribune ran the story horizontally with a panoramic shot of the mall down the rail.
Here’s a link to the story: Four months early, University Town Center looks ready for shoppers
By Justine Griffin for the Herald-Tribune
A peculiar rumor about Florida’s No. 1 grocer, Publix Supermarkets, and upscale organic retailer Whole Foods Market grew legs and took off over the weekend.
The viral story about Publix buying Whole Foods spread quickly, appearing in newspapers across Florida and around the Internet. Whether or not you like the idea — and no one knows for sure where this rumor started, or why — it seems unlikely to be true.
The buzz began last week, when Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods’ stock jumped 6.6 percent on Wall Street in two days, and options activity spiked. Whole Foods’ profile also was raised when it was ranked on the 2014 Fortune 500 list announced last week.
Publix, too, has seen substantial growth so far this year. The Lakeland-based retailer posted $7.8 billion in sales in the first quarter, up about 4 percent compared with the same period last year.
But their growth is no reason the companies might merge, analysts say.
Read more here.