Fall debuts an omen of a great holiday to come!

We're now firmly in the pre-holiday selling season, and that means tons of store openings and new leases around town. September saw more than 20 new stores make their debuts around the city, from Tiffany's Soho outpost at 97 Greene St. to Piperlime's first permanent brick-and-mortar ever at 121 Wooster, to Britain's Belstaff at 814 Madison Ave. For those looking for the new and amazing, last month was heaven! Why? Because the city continues to add jobs, some 77,400 through August according to the New York State Department of Labor. Private sector jobs rose by 93,100, a 2.9% increase. Jobs mean shoppers, even if city unemployment remains uncomfortably high (9.9% as of August). To me, this signifies that companies are beginning to hire cautiously, bringing on board people only as needed. While that's small comfort if you are or know someone looking for work, it does indicate that these jobs won't fall by the wayside at the next sign of a blip. That's giving local shoppers at least some confidence, and should bode well for holiday sales. And these new retailers come from around Europe and around town! From Germany come: LUMAS Galleries, an art-photo headquarters, which has taken space at 1084-1112 Madison Ave., and leathermaker Liebeskind Berlin, which made its New York City debut at 276 Lafayette St. Cut25 reportedly is looking for a Lexington Ave. location. Swarovski's first store in Brooklyn will be at 490 Fulton St. France's Juliette Longuet has opened her first store in the city at 153 East 70th St. C. Wonder's flagship has opened at Time Warner Center. Louis Vuitton's first shoe salon has taken up residence at Saks Fifth Ave., 611 Fifth. Continuing Shoe Wars, Stuart Weitzman is expanding his storefront count to 118 Spring St. Adrienne's Bridal Salon is relocating to 134 Orchard St. Burlington Coat Factory has replaced the Filene's Basement at 4 Union Square South. Shop-Rite will take the space at Brooklyn's Gateway Mall II that many had expected to go to Wal-Mart. Microsoft will open a holiday pop-up featuring its new Windows 8 operating system at Time Warner Center. Annie Sez, that haven for those looking for trends at a good price, opened its first Manhattan store at 50 West 14th St. There's still time to register and attend NYCREW Network's panel at the fourth annual NYC Real Estate Expo, being held Thursday, October 18 at Columbia University's Alfred Lerner Hall (2929 Broadway). Several of my colleagues from the New York chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women's Network will present "Futurecast: Retail, Real Estate and Reality," a discussion of the role development (including retail) plays in repositioning neighborhoods, with the panel beginning at 3 p.m. Confirmed to speak are Barbara Champoux, Esq., a partner at Crowell & Moring, Annemarie DiCola, CEO of Trepp LLC, Beth Zafonte, director of economic development services for Akerman Senterfitt LLP's Real Estate Practice Group, and Raizy Haas, senior vice president, project management and development of Extell Development Co. For more information and to register, please visit http://www.nycrealestateexpo.com/. And plans are well under way for International Council of Shopping Centers' Women's Special Industry Group program, to be held in conjunction with the association's New York National Conference, December 3 and 4 at the New York Hilton and Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers. Our panel will be held Monday, December 3 from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Mercury Ballroom at the Hilton. Attendance is included in your conference registration, so please visit http://www.icsc.org/apps/meeting_display.php?meeting=2012EDM for more information and to register. Happy Halloween and happy shopping! Faith Hope Consolo is the chairman at The Retail Group at Prudential Douglas Elliman, New York, N.Y.