Goodbye, only 99 cents. Hello, Dollar Tree.

Dollar Tree announced Wednesday that it has acquired leases for 170 99 Cents Only stores emerging from bankruptcy in Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas. Dollar Tree will reopen those stores starting this fall with its own products under its brand.

99 Cents Only filed for bankruptcy in April and closed all of its 370 stores.

The two chains are very different and the announcement is a sign of consolidation in the retail industry.

99 Cents Only was a regional chain and sold groceries. Dollar Tree, a nationwide company with mostly suburban locations, offers mostly convenience items such as party supplies and home goods. Dollar Tree was the last dollar store chain to sell everything for $1 before raising prices to $1.25 and up in 2021.

Dollar Tree also owns Family Dollar, which is primarily based in cities. Family Dollar has underperformed Dollar Tree and other discount chains in recent years and is closing 975 stores.

By taking over 99 Cents Only's leases out of bankruptcy, Dollar Tree can grow more cost-effectively than by building new stores. It also helps the Virginia-based chain expand its reach on the West Coast.

“Management believed these locations were fundamentally good and relatively scarce, so they took advantage of competitive weakness,” Michael Montani, an analyst at Evercore IRI, wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday.

One challenge for Dollar Tree could be the size of its 99-cent-only stores.

99 Cents Only stores average 20,000 square feet in size, more than twice the size of a typical dollar store chain.

(The-CNN-Wire & 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner company. All rights reserved.)

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(The Center Square) – The San Francisco Unified School District is projecting general fund deficits ranging from $25.3 million to $37.6 million over the next three years while facing a significant decline in enrollment.

That’s according to documents the school board received in its Aug. 29 meeting. The district general fund expenditures are $744 million in the 2023-24 school year. The deficits run from 2023-24 through 2025-26.

“Additional investments, including salary increases, will not be feasible within the District’s financial means,” the report stated.

The district is facing a staffing shortage in many different departments, the report stated.

In 2022-23, 15% of classrooms were staffed by substitute teachers or teachers on special assignment. This was also the case for the start of the 2023-24 school year.

Custodial Services and Student Nutritional Services departments had a 25% staffing shortage. The Buildings & Grounds department had a 50% staffing shortage in its heating and ventilation shop.

According to the report, the increase in vacant positions in classrooms is primarily due to the compensation schedule and insufficient incentives for long-term teacher retention.

The current average starting salary for a teacher is $64,000. The average teacher salary increases to $90,000 in mid-career, with the highest reported salary being $110,000.

Enrollment fell by over 4,000 students over the past decade, from 52,989 students in 2012-13 to 48,907 in 2022-23.

The district is also expecting an additional loss of 4,600 students by 2032.

The district did not respond to a request seeking comment.

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A million dollar renovation has been proposed for Jackson Park in Potrero Hill, San Francisco. The project proposal includes a $40 million renovation of Jackson Park. The San Francisco Recreation & Parks Commission approved the conceptual designs two weeks ago.

The renovation project is a joint venture between San Francisco Recreation & Parks and the Friends of Jackson Park (FoJP).

Jackson Park Map via SF Rec & Parks

The project site is a parcel covering 4.4 acres. The newly approved design improvements will bring a new playground, sports observation areas, community learning gardens and an outdoor ball court. The scope of the renovation also includes a dog run and more green spaces. There are plans to move the existing clubhouse from the southeast corner of the park to the middle of Carolina Street. This increases the total built-up area by 4,700 square meters. The renovated space includes an expanded and remodeled kitchen, restrooms, and a stage. In addition, the park will also relocate the currently overlapping ball fields, allowing for multiple simultaneous games for people to participate in while providing security and access.

Jackson Park Conceptual Rendering via SF Rec & Parks

Funding for the project includes $12 million in private donations, of which $2.8 million was raised. The financial structure also includes $12.6 million in combined development fees and $10 million in 2020 San Francisco Health and Recovery Bond funding. SF Rec and Park’s general fund will add approximately $5 million.

Jackson Park Rendering via SF Rec & Parks

San Francisco Recreation & Parks and FoJP have been working on the park’s redesign since 2014. Work on the project is expected to start in mid-2026, with completion expected in 2028. Jackson Park is located at the intersection of 17th Street and Arkansas Street Park in Potrero Hills.

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Jackson Park San Francisco Recreation & Parks

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E-commerce giant Amazon will close eight of its Amazon Go stores in Seattle, San Francisco and New York. The move comes as part of the company’s effort to reduce costs and realign its retail strategy in a difficult economic environment.

The closures were first reported by GeekWire, and an Amazon spokesperson confirmed the news to TechCrunch. The eight stores are scheduled to remain open until April 1, 2023.

Valuation of the portfolio

Amazon said that like any physical retailer, it regularly evaluates its store portfolio and makes optimization decisions as needed. A company spokesman said: “In this instance, we have decided to close a small number of Amazon Go stores in Seattle, New York City and San Francisco. We remain committed to the Amazon Go format and operate more than 20 Amazon Go stores across the US and will continue to learn which locations and features customers resonate with best as we continue to develop our Amazon Go stores.”

The company introduced its first checkout-free location near its Seattle headquarters in 2016. Amazon has since expanded the concept to include more stores in the United States.

Amazon isn’t the only company looking to streamline its retail operations amid economic uncertainty. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Amazon was pausing the expansion of Amazon Fresh Grocery Stores to consider how to make the stores more competitive with mainstream supermarkets.

Continuous growth

Despite the closures, Amazon remains committed to its checkout-free grocery stores and other new concepts. The company recently opened a new Amazon Go store in Puyallup, Washington and plans to continue expanding the brand.

The move to close the eight stores comes a year after Amazon announced it would close 68 brick-and-mortar retail stores in the United States and the United Kingdom. These closures included the Amazon Books bookstores, pop-up shops in various markets, and the 4-star stores where customers could buy popular and highly rated products on Amazon.com.

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Sources:

To ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this article, we have consulted the following sources:

• TechCrunch: Amazon is closing eight Amazon Go stores in Seattle, San Francisco and New York
• GeekWire: Amazon is closing eight Amazon Go stores in Seattle, San Francisco and New York
• Bloomberg: Amazon pauses expansion of Amazon Fresh Grocery Stores as it evaluates business

The post Breaking Information: Amazon to shut eight Amazon Go shops in Seattle, San Francisco and New York | Greenback Offers appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SACRAMENTO (CBS SF / AP) – Governor Gavin Newsom’s government on Tuesday tapped a former federal attorney to help investigate billions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment benefits paid by the state during the shutdown of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Employment Development Department and Fraud Task Force of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services have appointed McGregor W. Scott as “Special Adviser on Fraud.” Authorities said Scott will work with law enforcement to fight fraud and prosecute anyone accused of offending the government.

CONTINUE READING: 3 Indicted in the Northern California prison-based EDD fraud system

Scott was the US Attorney for the Eastern District of California under former Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump. The district spans 34 counties from the Oregon border to Bakersfield in the Central Valley.

While US attorney Scott and several district attorneys revealed that the state had approved hundreds of millions of dollars in unemployment benefits on behalf of prison inmates, including some convicted murderers on death row.

“The state unemployment systems were attacked by sophisticated international and national organized fraud systems last year,” said Scott. “We look forward to working with EDD, Cal OES, and local, state and federal attorneys to identify, investigate, and prosecute those who stole benefits that rightly belonged in the pockets of Californians in need.”

CONTINUE READING: California EDD now requires proof of job search in order to receive unemployment benefits

California was overwhelmed by jobless claims during the coronavirus pandemic after Newsom issued the first nationwide home stay order that forced many businesses to close. As of March 2020, more than 23 million applications have been made, with the state paying $ 158 billion in benefits.

But at least $ 11 billion of that money was fraudulent, state officials said earlier this year. The state has classified an additional $ 20 billion in services as “suspicious” but has not yet said how many of these services were fraudulent.

The employment development department has put in place safeguards to help detect fraud and identity theft, including using a new identity verification tool and matching claims against Thompson Reuters law enforcement databases, the department said in a statement.

MORE NEWS: UPDATE: State Requiring Proof of Job Seeker for Unemployment Benefit; How will EDD enforce it?

“McGregor Scott has led numerous large-scale criminal investigations in his many years as a prosecutor and federal attorney – an experience that will help put criminals behind bars for defrauding the system,” said Rita Saenz, director of the division Employment development.

The post Newsom Appoints Particular Counsel To Examine Multi-Billion Greenback EDD Debit Card Fraud – CBS San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.