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August
23-24, Denver, CO
24-26, Orlando, FL
25-27, Biloxi, MS
25-28, Miami, FL
26-28, Louisville, KY
26-29, Montreal, QE, Canada

September
5-8, Warwick, RI
7-10, Las Vegas, NV
8-10, Atlanta, GA
8-11, Halifax, NS (Canada)
9-11, Billerica, MA
9-11, Lansing, MI
9-11, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
15-17, Charlotte, NC
15-17, Dallas, TX
15-18, Boston, MA
16-18, Columbus, OH
16-18, Lombard, IL
16-18, Los Angeles, CA
17-20, Chicago, IL
23, Madison, WI
30-Oct. 2, Minnetonka, MN

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• Are Malls Out, Mixed Use In?
  Urban and Suburban Transformations of the Retail Landscape
• Featured Vendors In GiftsWholesale.Com
• Trade Shows
  

Featured Vendors in GiftsWholesale.Com
indicates a CAMEO EZ© web site.

American Picture Company: Great quality framed art at very competitive price points for gift & décor retailers. Primitive, Folk, Americana, Landscapes, etc. Always adding fresh new art images while maintaining top repeat sellers! Available glassed or textured.

Badash Crystal: Our 24% hand-cut lead crystal is produced in the finest factories in Europe by the same artisans that manufacture for Mikasa, Waterford, Lenox, and Sasaki. Every piece is individually and safely gift boxed. We offer superb quality and value for all your gift giving and/or personal pleasure.

Hansen's Christmas Stuff : Everything you will need to make your Christmas season merry and bright. Hansen's is the exclusive distributor in Canada and U.S. for Gnomy's Diaries, handcrafted originals from Annekabouke of Holland. Gnomy's Diaries is a wonderful line of products that has something for everyone. Two sites: US and Canadian.

Mud Pie: Mud Pie products are now featured in three catalogs: Mud Pie Baby, Mud Pie Gift, and Mud Pie Pet. It has always been our goal to offer innovative giftware that's affordably priced and adorably packaged.

Peking Handicraft, Inc. is an international manufacturer and wholesaler specializing in home textiles, decorative accessories and giftware. The company's expertise in sourcing and manufacturing the finest products from throughout China is reflected in over two decades of experience and is recognized throughout the industry.

Sassys is all about color and fun and gifts. Chock full of color and sass, these cute polka-dot bowpads, ribboned photoframes, brightly colored linen towels, cheeky wall décor, and resort fun-wear flip-flops, koozies and caps are all decked out in sassy bows. Get Fun. Get Witty. GetSassys.com!

Spring Street is proud to offer the finest assortment of personal, home, and office accessories. Our extensive product lines are all theme oriented, from baby to bride and beyond. All of our gift items are hand epoxy enameled and adorned with faux jewel encrusted motifs. Many of our designs are inspired from the famed Soho district of New York City where the very real Spring Street is located.

Wellspring: Stationery products that help keep you organized by giving you fashion with function--wherever you are in your home, office, or on the go. Includes: Pencil Pads®, Auto Notes™, Flip Notes, Wiggle Pens™, note cards, note pads, and recipe books.

Are Malls Out, Mixed Use In?
Urban and Suburban Transformations of the Retail Landscape

Something interesting is happening in Birmingham, Alabama. Brookwood Mall, which opened in 1973, is going to become a "Mixed Use" development, which will still include retail, but will also have a 165,000-square-foot office tower opening this year and potentially a hotel and a condominium residence in the future. Colonial Properties, which is in the midst of transforming the mall it acquired 10 years ago, has similar developments in Florida and North Carolina.

This is a national trend, of course, with many cities' urban areas revitalizing and people falling out of love with suburban malls and Big Boxes with their acres of asphalt. Tiring of long suburban-to-urban commutes, many people are longing to be closer to work and for the tree-lined sidewalks, small shops, and walkable communities of years gone by. Commercial real estate developers are rushing to meet the need.

"We brought the windows back to life," said Robin Rice, executive vice president of West Elm, a furniture store in Washington, DC, which opened just this week in a downtown that is seeing more life than in the last 12 years. "We want them to be showstoppers," Rice says of the store windows that people are walking by again, instead of zipping by at 45 miles per hour.

Third Street Promenade in downtown Santa Monica, California, is an example of a coordinated effort between city government and the business community that has successfully combined retail, entertainment, dining, hotel, office and community event venues. All together, there are 30 blocks in the downtown "Bayside District". The pedestrian-friendly Third Street Promenade serves as the anchor for the larger downtown area.

In Atlanta, Georgia, a new zip code has been assigned to Atlantic Station, a mixed-use community built on the site of an abandoned steel mill on the northwest corner of Midtown. Besides 2 million square-feet of retail and entertainment space with a Who's Who list of tenants, a hotel, and apartments or condominiums for 10,000 people, the development just broke ground for its third high rise office tower. All told, there is 12 million square feet of all-new retail, entertainment, residential and office space on 138 acres, much of it pedestrian friendly.

Definitions:

• Mixed Use. The practice of allowing more than one type of use in a building or set of buildings. In planning zone terms, this can mean some combination of residential, commercial, industrial, office, institutional, or other land uses. (source)
  
• Live/Work. refers to a space in which the quiet enjoyment expectations of the neighbors in the building or adjacent buildings take precedence over work needs of the unit in question. Therefore, the predominant use of a live/work unit is residential, and commercial activity is a secondary use; employees and walk-in trade are not usually permitted. (source)
  
• Pedestrian Mall. Areas of a city or town in which automobile traffic is prohibited. They are instituted by communities who feel that it is desirable to have areas not dominated by the automobile. Converting a street or an area to car-free use is called pedestrianization. (source)