The decision to close a store is never easy. The impact is greater than just closing a building. It affects people — people who work in, shop in and live in communities near our stores — and we never take that lightly. Treating people and communities with respect and compassion during this transition will guide everything we do.
For example, all associates in these stores are eligible to transfer to another Walmart location. Hiring managers from surrounding facilities will be in each of these stores this week to help associates begin finding their next opportunity.
Having an active role in the community is especially important to us. We are proud of our neighborhood investments through local events like Christmas in the Wards, the Always Giving Back Foundation Bike Giveaway, ChiGives Back MLK Day, the Bud Billiken Day Parade and more.
We will continue working with local organizations, creating solutions to challenges faced by the city and country, including racial inequity and food deserts. We continue to help create and expand job opportunities and will leverage our resources to help strengthen the community, especially those underserved.
We know the community will have questions about why we are closing these locations.
The simplest explanation is that collectively our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago – these stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years.
The remaining four Chicago stores continue to face the same business difficulties, but we think this decision gives us the best chance to help keep them open and serving the community.
Over the years, we have tried many different strategies to improve the business performance of these locations, including building smaller stores, localizing product assortment and offering services beyond traditional retail.
We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the city, including $70 million in the last couple years to upgrade our stores and build two new Walmart Health facilities and a Walmart Academy training center.
It was hoped that these investments would help improve our stores’ performance. Unfortunately, these efforts have not materially improved the fundamental business challenges our stores are facing.
Community and city leaders have been open and supportive as we met with them over the years to share these challenges.
As we looked for solutions, it became even more clear that for these stores, there was nothing leaders could do to help get us to the point where they would be profitable.
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