The Detroit News, November 20, 2019
H&M’s 25,000-square-foot location set for grand opening in Detroit
Swedish clothing retailer H&M is set to open its highly anticipated store at noon Thursday in the downtown, bringing fast-fashion clothing for men, women and children.  When the doors open at 1505 Woodward, shoppers will have access to casual, work and dress apparel as well as accessories in the 25,000-square-foot space the retailer leases from Bedrock.  H&M is considered a heavyweight, said Ken Dalto, a Metro Detroit retail industry analyst.  “It’s new,”  he said. “It’s not old. It’s not your mother or father’s store. What that shows me is that Detroit is getting more known as a place to go, trendier, urban, safe and populated by not just singles, but families in that area.”

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The Detroit News, November 8, 2019
At last two Kmarts in Metro Detroit, everything must go
No matter how much Kmart changed, Traci Gerick stayed the same.  The discount department store chain, born in Garden City in 1962, changed its logos over the years. Changed its name: Today’s Kmart, Super Kmart Center, Big Kmart, Super Kmart. Changed its colors, even: a few stores switched from the familiar red and blue to a peculiar lime green and gray. Gerick stayed loyal — and she says she’ll be loyal to the end, come February, when the last two Kmarts in Metro Detroit fade into the strip mall of memory.   “I expect they’ll be gone completely in three to five years,” said Ken Dalto, a retail and management consultant in Bingham Farms.  “Maybe two years.  They don’t have an identity anymore,” he said.

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Fox 2 Detroit, October 3, 2019
Concerns of one-state recession bubble up at UAW pickets against GM for 18th day
Is a major downturn in Michigan’s economy coming soon? Some say yes as the UAW strike against General Motors drags through 18th day.  The GM strike has hit day 18. While far from the record length set in 1970, picketers are no longer receiving their regular wages. The money coming in is a “union wage” – a modest $250 a week.  Management reconstruction expert Ken Dalto was consulted in Detroit’s bankruptcy. He says that a one-state recession is very real and a solution needs to be completed soon, for the betterment of Michigan.  “I would say each week that goes on it’s going to get a bigger and bigger problem for Michigan,” he said.   Dalto says since jobs in Michigan are dominated by the auto industry, other jobs could soon have problems of their own.  “There is a whole feeder industry of restaurants and service businesses and things which service this gigantic, large industry,” said Dalto.

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The Detroit Free Press, July 27, 2019
Biggby Coffee Co-CEO Mike McFall drinks 14 espressos a day, wants to own the Red Wings
There are two shots of espresso in a grande Carmel Marvel, the sugary and best-selling drink for East Lansing-based coffee house chain Biggby Coffee. Retail analyst and consultant Ken Dalto said that Biggby has done a great job competing in a tough market against big competitors such as Starbucks, Dunkin’, even Panera Bread. “They’ve done a lot of things right,” said Dalto, who is based in Bingham Farms. “They have carved a niche right above Dunkin’ Donuts in terms of decore and ambiance, and they’re very competitive on quality and price.”
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The Detroit News, June 26, 2019
Partridge Creek loses Nordstrom, its 2nd major anchor to leave
The Mall at Partridge Creek is losing a second anchor with Nordstrom closing in September. The Seattle-based luxury department store chain said Wednesday it is focusing its efforts on customers at its six other stores in Southeast Michigan and online. “Their survival is at stake,” said Kenneth Dalto, president of Dalto Consulting Inc., “People are going to wonder, was Partridge Creek not the mall it was cracked up to be? It doesn’t look good. It’s going to affect the mall’s finances.” Still, he said Partridge Creek’s management remains strong and expects the mall to weather the storm. “They’re going to have to think out of the box, I think they’re going to sustain themselves”
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The Detroit News, March 6, 2019
H&M store on Woodward could attract more retailers to downtown Detroit
The downtown is poised for new business, and retailers are taking note. Swedish clothing retailer H&M will open a store in downtown Detroit this fall. Could the arrival of H&M bring a big-name retailer the likes of Apple or Target? “Definately Apple,” said Ken Dalto, a Metro Detroit retail industry analyst. “Target, yes, because Target has an urban strategy.” The city, he said, “is no longer off-limits as it was 10, 15 years ago.”
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WXYZ Channel 7 Detroit, December 12, 2018
New life for vacant buildings after store closures in Metro Detroit
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Crain’s Detroit Business, November 29, 2018
Eastland’s new owner brings big promises, spotty record of mall redevelopment
Eastland Center mall in Harper Woods has long struggled with vacancy and disinvestment. Its new owner promises efforts to revitalize it. “Reviving any mall is a tall order with the masses abandoning brick and mortar in favor of the internet, but the going will be especially tough for Eastland Center,” said Ken Dalto, president of Bingham Farms-based financial consultant Kenneth Dalto Associates Inc. “People shop differently – that’s the first big problem. The second big problem is that the location has proven to be a loser over many years and they have better malls three, four miles up the road.”
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The Detroit Free Press, October 1, 2018
Epidemic of empty stores threatens more metro Detroit shopping malls
An epidemic of shuttered storefronts and liquidating department stores continues to plague many of metro Detroit’s enclosed shopping malls, threatening the existence of some once-thriving properties that couldn’t keep up with retail changes or simply have too much empty space to fill. “We are definitely over-malled, and the malls are too big,” said retail analyst and consultant Ken Dalto, who is based in Bingham Farms. “Not every mall is going to survive.”
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Detroit News, July 23, 2018
Detroit-area malls think outside big box
Destiny Philips didn’t come to Lakeside Mall to shop. Instead, the 23-year-old teacher from Detroit was taking her young son and daughter to Jeepers, an indoor arcade with rides. Keyne Conley did have shopping on her mind at the traditional enclosed mall in Sterling Heights. But it was only because the 23-year-old Detroiter needed some last-minute things for vacation, and Amazon’s two-day delivery wouldn’t arrive in time. Their experiences illustrate the changing attitudes of Americans toward brick-and-mortar retailers. “It’s a downtown area in Macomb County,” Patridge Creek General Manager Wendy Batiste-Johnson said. “I believe our customers come to the mall for the full package that can’t be obtained by a click of the button at your home.” Retail expert Kenneth Dalto agreed. “They’ve made it a destination. People all the way from Grosse Pointe want to go there. It’s a magnet for the east-side middle-class.”
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ClickonDetroit.com – WDIV – Channel 4 News, April 10, 2018
Rod Meloni of WDIV – Channel 4 News – stopped by Dalto Consulting to talk with Ken Dalto about Carson’s Department Stores.
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Detroit News, March 16, 2018
Metro Detroit Toys R Us stores may not be vacant long
As 14 Toys R Us and Babies R Us locations close in Metro Detroit amid the company’s collapse, local retail and commercial real estate experts say landlords should not have much trouble re-purposing the buildings.  “It will be a temporary setback for people who own  these spots, but they will weather it as they did with Borders and others,” said Ken Dalto, “It is a smaller anchor and it will affect local real estate, but it will not be devastating”.
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USA Today, January 16, 2018
How to prepare for a nuclear blast, other disasters
How prepared are you to survive a nuclear blast?  When it comes to surviving an attack you’ll want to find shelter as quickly as possible to avoid nuclear fallout. That means finding a safe spot, preferably a concrete basement. It’s ideal to have a few items to hunker down for a few days, including water, food, your cell phone or radio, so you can hear emergency broadcasts. If you’re trying to take survival to the next level, capitalists have a solution to everything, even surviving the end of the world.  The customers are “working people who fear for their lives,” said Ken Dalto, “It’s too soon to know how well these emergency kits are selling, but that with a nation of 320 million, there are plenty of people who are nervous about the future”.
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Detroit Free Press, November 17, 2017
Holiday shopping: Fierce battles with Amazon could mean more negotiating power for you
Scuffles in years past centered on Black Friday fights as stressed-out consumers rushed the aisles to try to snag big-screen TVs. This year, big brand retailers – such as Walmart, Target and Kohl’s – will be duking it out against e-commerce powerhouse Amazon.  “Retail is scrambling in a number of ways to meet the online onslaught,” said local retail analyst Kenneth Dalto, “Amazon is going to beat the crap out of a lot of people”.
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Detroit Free Press, October 1, 2017
Seeking to survive a disaster? Costco sells a $1,000 food kit that lasts 25 years
Capitalists have a solution to everything, even surviving the end of the world. Take Costco’s 1-year emergency food kit for $999.99, including shipping. “You have hurricanes. You saw what that did,” Dalto said, referring to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, which battered Texas, Louisiana, Florida and Puerto Rico. “You add to that climate change, and terrorism, and the idea of nuclear war, which is very much in the news with North Korea, and they can develop a missile that might be able to hit California – even Seattle,”.
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The Detroit News, June 27, 2017
Amazon set to build Romulus facility with $5M grant
Amazon.com Inc. will go forward with plans to build a Romulus warehouse that would create a promised 1,600 jobs after the Michigan Strategic Fund board approved Tuesday a $5 million grant for the online company. Ken Dalto, a retail industry analyst, said Monday the fulfillment centers help Amazon deliver products more quickly within a 100-mile radius of those centers. “Amazon is taking over the world,” Dalto said. “They want to be able to (fill orders) quickly”.
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The Detroit News, June 26, 2017
Amazon wants $5M from state for 1.6K Romulus jobs
Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. plans to build a facility in Romulus – creating 1,600 jobs – if it gets $5 million from the state, according to a document obtained by The Detroit News and a source with knowledge of the plans. “Amazon is taking over the world,” Dalto said. “They want to be able to (fill orders) quickly,”.
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The Detroit News, April 12, 2017
Woodward retail gains amid big box pains
Athletic apparel and shoe maker Under Armour opened an artsy, high-tech store in downtown along Woodward on Wednesday, the latest effort to revitalize the street’s retail scene that was snuffed out partly by the suburban mall. “What you are seeing on downtown Woodward Avenue is a response to that overall retail scene. It’s niche, it’s unique, it’s not just shopping, but office workers, residents, visitors – a city,” Dalto said, who runs Kenneth J. Dalto & Associates in Bingham Farms.
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Siegle & Associates News Letter – Second Quarter 2018
Macomb County’s Golden Corridor: Developments Along Hall Road
One of the fastest growing and most active areas for retail development in southeast Michigan has been along the Hall Road corridor, which extends from Sterling Heights and Utica on the west to Shelby, Macomb, Clinton, and Chesterfield townships on the east. As these surrounding areas grow in population, retail developments are emerging and have become popular destinations for shoppers from all over the metro area.  Currently, M-59 (Hall Road) is undergoing a construction project that will last through 2018.  Businesses along Hall Road, which will be open and accessible during construction, are likely to take a 10 to 25 perfect hit in sales during construction, according to real estate consultant Ken Dalto.  “Retailers have to announce sales to attract shoppers – make their marketing more focused, whether it’s through mailings or eBlasts,” Dalto “They also need to get the word out on the status of construction – especially that construction is going to be halted during Christmas – because people aren’t going to automatically now that.” 
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Detroit Free Press, March 22, 2017
Northland Mall’s possible future: Pricey condos
You’d drive up to an old Macy’s department store, pull right inside and drive up two, three, even four floors to an indoor parking spot – just down the hall from your luxury loft condo. No worries: Shopping is just a stroll away or elevator ride away. When anchor stores close, it’s often the death knell for a mall, said retail consultant Ken Dalto in Bingham Farms. “They need warehouses and distribution centers but they don’t need these big spaces with all the parking,” Dalto said.
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Crain’s Detroit Business, March 5, 2017
Businesses along busy M-59 shopping corridor brace for 2-year road project
When a massive, two-year road reconstruction project is ramping up on one of the busiest shopping strips in town, retailers buckle their seatbelts for a bumpy ride. “Two years is an eternity in retail,” Dalto said. “You can make of it up around Christmas, but you can’t depend on it.”
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Detroit Free Press, February 23, 2017
Falling sales force Family Christian to close stores
Family Christian – a nonprofit retailer based in Grand Rapids with outlets in 36 states – announced today it is closing after 85 years. “I don’t think it has anything to do with religion,” Dalto said. “I see it as pure business.”
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The Detroit News, January 4, 2017
Some Detroit-area Macy’s, Kmart stores closing
Retail analysts have long predicted American malls faced a reckoning, and 2017 has started with major closings of Kmart, Sears and Macy’s outlets nationwide, including 15 Michigan stores. “Anchor stores are more like boat anchors. They are sinking malls,” said Ken Dalto. “You are going to see stores in the middle – like Sears and Macy’s – get hit, and that will bring down many shopping malls.”
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Detroit Free Press, January 4, 2017
Eastland, Westland Macy’s among 68 to be closed
Macy’s stores at Eastland Center in Harper Woods and Westland Shopping Center will close later this year as the struggling department store chain continues to cope with the migration of shoppers to the Internet and away from many traditional malls. “It’s going to be very hurtful for both of them,” Dalto said of the post-Macy’s Eastland and Westland. “They are not going to get another anchor that easily of that importance.”
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The Detroit News, November 23, 2016
Bargains not just for Black Friday anymore
Smartphones, online shopping and “sneak peek” discounting has changed Black Friday from the door-bustin’ shopping brawl of old to a more toned-down event, reshaping how retailers appeal to consumers on the day that still serves as the annual kick-off for the holiday shopping season. “Retailers have completely transformed their whole business,” Dalto said. “A quarter of their holiday sales are from online. They’ve started discounting so much earlier. Advertising is down. The whole thing is been diluted.”
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Oakland Press News, September 27, 2016
Hired for the holidays: Great Lakes Crossing to host job fair, experts offer seasonal predictions
More than 50 stores and restaurants at Great Lakes Crossing Outlets will be present for an upcoming job fair at the mall in hopes of hiring seasonal and regular part-time and full-time workers. “I think you’re going to see holiday shopping down from last year, there’s still too much uncertainty about what this election is going to bring and too much unemployment,” Dalto said. “The people who are going to do well are the discounters like the Great Lakes types because over the last five years the quality of their merchandise has gone up and the pricing has stayed reasonable.”
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Crain’s Detroit Business, August 21, 2016
Meijer doubles down on the big box
Competitors such as Wal-Mart and Target are experimenting with smaller stores in an effort to draw millennials and fit stores into more compact urban footprints.  But the pioneer of that type of superstore still sees stores the size of three or four football fields, like one that opened in Flat Rock earlier this month, as central to its future. “When people tell you they’re going to Target, they have everything, (and shoppers are) going to get everything,” Dalto said.
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Crain’s Detroit Business, July 31, 2016
Stores must ‘master the experience’ of shopping to ultimately succeed, retail experts say
The phrase “retail is dead” may ring true for some metro Detroiters after witnessing the closing of malls such as Northland Center in Southfield and the Summit Place Mall in Waterford Township – now vacant symbols of times when more families would spend a day at the mall. “Baby boomers buy less, although have more purchasing power,” Dalto said. “The key to all selling right now is millennials.”
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Detroit Free Press, July 7, 2016
Back from the brink, Olga’s Kitchen is ready to expand
Under new ownership and seven months out of bankruptcy, Olga’s Kitchen is bringing back classic recipes and preparing to expand after a period of retrenchment at the beloved Michigan restaurant chain. “It was trying to cut costs,” Dalto said of the previous strategy, which also involved smaller portion sizes.
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The Detroit News, November 29, 2015
Clicks defeat bricks during Black Friday weekend
Online shoppers outnumbered their brick-and-mortar counterparts during U.S. retailers’ pivotal Black Friday weekend, underscoring the challenges facing American malls this holiday season. “They don’t browse,” Dalto said. “There is a such a thing as a Christmas impulse shopper. You want to get people in the store.”
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Crain’s Detroit Business, November 27, 2015
Detroit’s Better Made has chipped away at customer tastes for 85 years
Better Made Snack Foods, celebrating its 85th year in business, keeps rethinking its products as consumer tastes continue to shift to snacks that are lower in salt, fat and calories. But regardless of national trends, chips still rule. “Better Made is a little behind Frito-Lay, but it is catching up on taste and health,” Dalto said. “They are trying to extend their market. They need to capture people who have been with Lay’s and like jalapeno chips. They lost these people, but are competing to get that market back.”
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Detroit Free Press, November 17, 2015
How Olga’s Kitchen went broke and could be saved
Olga’s Kitchen, the regional chain that elicits fond childhood memories for many metro Detroiters, is about to be purchased and perhaps saved from the bankrupt company’s slow, painful decline spanning two decades. “They had built up a lot of debt and they weren’t making enough money,” Dalto said. “It was basically (due to) overbuilding stores, not having the working capital to do it, having three years of losses and not correcting it earlier.”
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Crain’s Detroit Business, June 12, 2015
Cost of Olga’s in Compuware Building pushed chain into bankruptcy, exec confirms
The large costs of opening Olga’s Kitchen at the Compuware Building in downtown Detroit led to insurmountable debt and, inevitably, the Troy-based restaurant chain’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. Restructuring firm Kenneth J. Dalto & Associates Inc. was hired to assess restructuring options.
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Crain’s Detroit Business, June 6, 2015
Shake Shack seeks trademark on use of metro Detroit Chicken Shack’s name
Which came first, the Chicken Shack or the Chicken Shack sandwich? That’s a question the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will figure out this summer. “Shake Shack did an IPO not even six months ago and they are sitting on some money right now,” Dalto said. “It could hire a very powerful New York law firm if it’s intent on the brand, and Chicken Shack is a good family company, but maybe it doesn’t compete on that level.”
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The Detroit News, March 26, 2015
Forman Mills opens in Pontiac, other under-served areas
A long struggling shopping center near the dead Summit Place Mall on North Telegraph is getting some new life with the grand opening of a Forman Mills Clothing Factory Wareouse. “They are getting good deals on the rent, areas where property values are lower,” Dalto said. “Many property owners are looking for these stores because they are large and they take up a lot of space.”
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Detroit Free Press, January 24, 2015
2 Detroit-area outlet centers could happen this year
Even as the ease of online shopping forever changes the retail world, a few local developers see a strong future in building more brick-and-mortar outlet malls in Metro Detroit. “The idea of an outlet mall being crummy merchandise is no longer the case,”  said Ken Dalto. “Outlet malls are different than they used to be, and people will drive an hour to go to a good one”
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