Leisure World will host a golf tournament on Dec. 3 to benefit Mesa United Way, continuing a 35-year tradition of supporting the charitable organization. The event, open to all interested golfers from throughout the Valley, will take place at the Coyote Run Championship Golf Course and will include an awards luncheon, raffle and putting contest.

Gayle Shanks has fought a sometimes frightening battle against national book chains for 36 years, so one might expect the independent Tempe bookseller would be overjoyed at news that the goliath Borders is in dire straights.

Smaller retailers at Greenfield Plaza counted on Bashas’ to bring steady traffic to the center at Greenfield and Baseline roads in Gilbert. Since the Bashas’ store closed last July, traffic has slowed considerably and the parking lot remains mostly empty.

The Gilbert Unified School District governing board will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the district office, 140 S. Gilbert Road.The board will hear an analysis of AIMS test results, and possibly approve an agreement with the East Valley Institute of Technology, for technical education.

At the Sycamore and Main Street transit center in west Mesa, commuters using the park-and-ride lot exit their vehicles and then walk toward the buses and trains - right past a perfectly good parking lot.

The Cactus League, its geographic balance shifting westward in recent years, soon will add two teams to the East Valley's side of the scales. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community announced Thursday it plans to build a spring training facility for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.

A vote by members of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community to allow the serving of alcohol at restaurants along the Loop 101 corridor is a "huge plus" for the redevelopment of the Scottsdale Pavilions shopping center, according to Marty De Rito, developer of the project.

Just over two years ago, I began my first Retail Corridor column with the oft-cited quote by the famous Chinese Taoist philosopher, Lao-Tzu: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Shoe Pavilion — 6 stores. Mervyn’s — 11 stores. Linens-N-Things — 12 stores. Circuit City — 13 stores. Taken together, 42 large retail stores, commonly called “big-box” stores, are closing and dropping 1.8 million square feet of real estate onto the Valley market in the next few months.

About half of the 50-plus stores and restaurants planned for High Street at CityNorth opened Thursday.

If you aren't done - or overdone - with Halloween after handing out gobs of candy to pint-sized princesses and sweet-loving superheroes today, you can still buy groaning ghouls and ghostly garb at Spirit stores this weekend.

Linens ’n Things, Mervyns and Shoe Pavilion stores are holding clearance sales.

Fossil at Scottsdale Fashion Square has closed temporarily.

Family-owned Ganem Jewelers opened a second store at the Shops at Chauncey Ranch, the Whole Foods-anchored shopping center on the southwest corner of Scottsdale Road and Mayo Boulevard.

Mervyns is closing four of its stores in Arizona, three of them in or near the East Valley.

Longtime retailers Levitz, Sharper Image and Linens 'n Things recently slipped into bankruptcy.

A new 400,000-square foot shopping center anchored by a Super Target is poised to arise on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa community side of the Scottsdale border.

“Mesa Riverview developer Marty DeRito recently paid $88 million cash for the Scottsdale Pavilions shopping center (Tribune Business, Tuesday). Does that tell us Marty DeRito never really needed $84 million in incentives to build the Riverview development in Mesa?”

Local developer De Rito Partners bought Scottsdale Pavilions for $88 million and is planning a major makeover of the languishing shopping center at Indian Bend Road and Loop 101.

The Shops at 9400, the nearly completed boutique retail center at 94th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale, should fill up nicely after the first of the year.

Construction is under way on a Lowe’s home improvement store in south Gilbert.

A bevy of new businesses opened Thursday at SanTan Village shopping center at Williams Field Road and Loop 202 in Gilbert.

Scottsdale Boy Scout Troop 446 will stage the monthly Scouts’ Computer Swap Meet and Recycling Event 5:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. today at the Scottsdale Pavilions Shopping Center, Indian Bend Road between Pima Road and Loop 101.