The developers at Vestar have announced that H&M has signed a letter of intent to open a store at Tempe Marketplace. But the clothing company refuses to discuss leases that aren’t signed. Think of this as a marriage: H&M has put down the deposit on the chapel, but will refuse to say it’s getting married until it’s walking down the aisle.It’s a coy game that developers and retailers always play. In mid-April I asked H&M spokeswoman Lisa Sandberg to give me an idea how H&M handles first-in-the-market announcements — do they make a big deal of it? In her voice message reply Sandberg (who was opening three stores in Orange County, Calif., at the time) reiterated what I already knew: They’ll only discuss lease announcements "when they’re fully executed."But good luck waiting for that — another employee told me that retailers often don’t sign leases in shopping centers until right before the store opens to the public. This allows them the option of pulling out and signing with another center that offers a better deal (sort of like how Glendale ended up with the Cardinals stadium and the Coyotes arena).

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