It appears that the Borders store in North Raleigh's Six Forks Station will be the one stand-alone Borders store to survive the retailer's bankruptcy filing.

The company announced thsi morning that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and would be closing about 30 percent of its stores "in the next several weeks." A list posted on the Borders website dedicated to the closure includes four Triangle locations as being among the affected stores.

The stores in Cary, Apex, Chapel Hill and the store at 404 E. Six Forks Road in Raleigh will all close. The only other North Carolina store on the list is located in Greensboro.

Locally, that will leave just the North Raleigh store at 8825 N. Six Forks Road in Six Forks Station and the Borders store at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

According to the Borders press release this morning, "The company emphasized that the closings were a reflection of economic conditions, cost structures and viability of locations, among other factors, and not on the dedication and productivity of the workforce in these stores."

Today may be Valentine's Day to most of us, but for folks who work at The Container Store, there's another reason to feel loved.

The Dallas retailer has named Feb. 14 "We Love Our Employees Day" at its 49 stores nationwide. The company will honor its 4,000 workers with special T-shirts, gift boxes filled with goodies and Godiva chocolates. Love songs will play in stores all day long, and customers are being encouraged to leave their favorite employees notes of appreciation either in-store or online.

It may all seem like a silly gimmick, but the company is shrewd to point out that making employees feel appreciated is key to its 10 percent employee turnover rate -- a benchmark that is extremely low for the retail world. Many retailers report turnover that tops 100 percent annually. And, CEO Kip Tindell says, happy employees make everyone happy in the long run.

"If you work to make your employees the happiest employees around, well then I assure you that they will absolutely, positively then make your customers the happiest customers around," he said. "And if those two are ecstatic, then wonderfully and almost ironically, you'll have the happiest shareholders around, too."

Home Depot is closing two North Carolina stores, one in Winterville and one in Rocky Mount.

According to WARN notices filed with the NC Department of Commerce, the two stores combined employ 185 people.

Company spokesman Stephen Holmes said the two stores at 950 Home Depot Plaza in Rocky Mount and 717 Thomas Langston Road in Winterville "weren't expected to meet their long-term financial returns." No Triangle-area stores are closing.

There is no set date yet for the closure of the two stores, Holmes said. That will depend on how long it takes to sell the stores' merchandise, a process that generally takes six to eight weeks. According to the WARN notices, the "first separation" of some employees will be on April 14. The departure of all the stores' employees will depend on the final timing of the stores' closures, Holmes said.

Kimco Realty, one of the largest owners and developers of shopping centers in the country, has purchased the Midtown Commons shopping center in Knightdale for $23.84 million, according to Wake County property records.

The seller was Crosland.

Kimco, a publicly traded real estate investment trust headquartered in New York, also owns the Shoppes at Midway Plantation, located across Knightdale Boulevard from Midtown Commons.

Kimco also owns stakes in retail centers in Cary, Morrisville, Durham and Raleigh.

The long-awaited and long-delayed Chick-fil-A restaurant at Raleigh's Cameron Village may finally be poised to become a reality.

It has been nearly three years since officials for the Atlanta-based fast food chain confirmed plans to open the nation's first two-floor Chick-fil-A at Cameron Village. But the original plans to put the restaurant in the former Village Eye Care building on Cameron Street were scrapped after it was decided that the space was simply too small.

Officials from Chick-fil-A and Cameron Village property management company Regency Centers then switched to Plan B, opting to put the restaurant on the corner of Woodburn Road and Cameron Street, basically in the corner of the existing Rite Aid store parking lot. The lease for that land has finally been executed, said Regency senior vice president of operations John Pharr on Tuesday.

The Blockbuster video store in Raleigh's Mission Valley shopping center will close in February. Property manager Virginia Davis said the store plans to vacate the space, at the corner of Western Boulevard and Avent Ferry Road, on Feb. 28.

The closure follows Blockbuster's bankruptcy filing earlier this year. At the time, the company said that stores would remain open, but later the company stated that it would be reviewing stores on a market-by-market basis. Blockbuster has continued to make changes as it faces stiff competition from companies including Netflix in the movie rental market.

Blockbuster, which once had close to two dozen stores in the Triangle now has 19, and that number will shrink to 18 after the Mission Valley closure. Davis said that no replacement tenant has signed a lease for the space yet.

One of the biggest complaints gadget consumers have had about Best Buy has been its draconian restocking fee for returned items.

Falls Village Shopping Center in North Raleigh has added three new tenants.

The largest of the three is the chain home furnishing store HomeGoods, which plans to open a 25,000-square-foot space by May.

Discount store Dollar Tree will begin interior construction on a 13,000 square foot space this month.

The third new tenant, the tavern Tap City, opened in early October in a 6,941-square-foot location.

As the new Tanger Outlets center in Mebane prepares for its Nov. 5 grand opening, more details are coming about what exactly will be happening on the center's first weekend in business.

Tanger will host a number of events from Nov. 5 through Nov. 7, including a free concert by country star Sara Evans and a special celebrity appearance by Stacy London, of hit TLC show "What Not to Wear."

Click read more for the full itinerary of events. The Tanger Outlet Center in Mebane is located at 4000 Arrowhead Boulevard, off I-40/85, Exit 154.  Shopping hours are Monday-Saturday: 10 am -9 pm and Sunday: 11 am-7 pm.

In today's News & Observer, we ran a story about "pop-up" stores -- temporary shopping outlets designed to offer ease of access for consumers and an increased presence for retailers as they enter their busiest time of the year.

Toys R Us has now opened a second Triangle pop-up store in Raleigh's Triangle Town Center. The store is located on the upper level of the mall near Macy's. It joins the other area Toys R Us pop-up store in Durham's Northgate mall. That store has been open since last month.