Over the past few years, retail giant Walmart has been actively closing locations, including several it deemed "underperforming." In 2022, the big-box retailer shuttered a handful of stores nationwide. But in 2023, closures were more widespread, with Walmart shuttering almost two dozen locations. For a while it felt like closures were slowing down, but they seem to be picking up again this year. Read on to find out all of the Walmart locations closing for good in February.
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One of the first to go will be the Walmart Neighborhood Market at 2121 Imperial Ave. in San Diego, which formally says goodbye this Friday, Feb. 9, Best Life previously reported.
The store, which is located in the Logan Heights neighborhood of San Diego, is a big loss for shoppers, who are worried about where they'll go once the store shuts down.
"I think it's great for me, plus the neighborhood. It's real convenient for me," South Park resident Shane Evans told NBC 7 San Diego of the store. "The reason I came out yesterday, I get my ribeye steaks here. I go in there and there's nothing."
Evans also pointed out that Albertsons is the nearest grocery store, but "the prices there are a little outrageous."
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Another Walmart in the San Diego area is set to close to the public on Feb. 9, this one in El Cajon at 605 Fletcher Pkwy. As with the Logan Heights store, customers were surprised and upset to hear the busy store is on the chopping block, while others were concerned about the loss of Walmart creating a food desert.
"I hate the fact that they're closing," Art Floto, a regular shopper at the location, told CBS 8. "When I heard that, my stomach kind of turned over."
In a statement previously provided to Best Life, the company explained that it decided not to renew its leases at the San Diego-area stores. Walmart said it makes decisions to close stores using several different factors—and similar to other shuttered Walmart locations, these stores haven't met performance expectations. This was compounded by the fact that Walmart couldn't meet mutual lease agreements with property managers at each location.
"We are grateful to the customers who have given us the privilege of serving them at our San Diego and El Cajon stores," Walmart spokesperson Brian Little said in a statement. "We look forward to continuing to serve them at any of our many locations across the area, on walmart.com and through delivery to their home or business."
Associates at the closing stores are eligible to transfer to a nearby location, the company said. Walmart also noted that there are still over a dozen stores and warehouse clubs in the San Diego area.
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A third Walmart location is shuttering in the Midwest, as it didn't meet financial expectations, CBS-affiliate 10 WBNS reported. The store, located at 3579 S. High St. in Columbus, Ohio, is shuttering next week, on Feb. 16, Little confirmed in a statement to Best Life. The store's pharmacy, however, will remain open for a few more weeks before officially closing on March 4.
As in California, the 180 employees at the Columbus Walmart will be eligible for transfer and paid through May 3. Eligible employees who don't want to transfer by that date will be paid a severance.
"We are grateful to the customers who have given us the privilege of serving them at our store on High Street in Columbus," Little said in the statement. "We look forward to continuing to serve them at any of our many locations across the area, on walmart.com and through delivery to their home or business."
Currently, there are no additional Walmart closures planned for this region.
While isolated closures are certainly a bummer for local shoppers, Walmart is actually upping its store footprint on the whole.
As part of ongoing expansion efforts, the big-box retailer is planning to build or convert more than 150 stores over the next five years, Best Life previously reported. The first two new stores under this initiative are Neighborhood Markets set to open later this spring in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, and Atlanta, according to a Jan. 31 press release.
"We're also finalizing construction plans on 12 new projects we intend to start this year, along with converting one of our smaller locations to a Walmart Supercenter," Walmart CEO John Furner wrote in the release.
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