Walmart observations

[Super S]

Walmart is closing two stores in Portland, OR. The Hayden Meadows and Eastport Plaza stores. Both stores have always appeared pretty busy and with the lack of Walmarts in the area, they should have done well. My guess is that theft was a huge factor in closing these locations.
https://www.oregonlive.com/business/202 ... plaza.html

I am not surprised by the Hayden Meadows location closing. That building was something else before and had a very odd layout and was a small store. Even the parking lot was small. While I don't recall the square footage, it was smaller than some non-super Walmart locations. It was also somewhat of a hidden location that was easy to miss.

I am a little surprised by the Eastport store though. At its opening, it was part of a completely redeveloped Eastport Plaza which demolished the enclosed mall. While it opened as a conventional Walmart, it was a typical design, and it's worth noting that a new Albertsons was part of the redevelopment also. Albertsons closed quite some time ago, and the Walmart did expand into a supercenter which filled the void left by Albertsons. It always seemed busy but there were security vehicles constantly patrolling the lot and I got the feeling that shoplifting was an issue.

Portland has never been particularly welcoming to Walmart to begin with, and I have a feeling this was a factor in the Hayden Meadows location going into such a small location.

[storewanderer]

Both of these Wal Marts were rather problem stores and had a lot of security and locked merchandise. However both were very busy stores. I am surprised by both closures.

I am concerned what will happen to surrounding stores of any chain (Wal Mart, Fred Meyer, or Target) when these close. This almost feels like Wal Mart ceding Portland market to Target as far as general merchandise mass retail goes. Given the general merchandise cuts at Fred Meyer my suspicion is they are already somewhat below Target and Wal Mart in terms of general merchandise sales productivity (obviously on grocery Fred Meyer is far above both of them).

[storewanderer]

Was in the Wal Mart in Reno on Kietzke. There have been some changes in this store since I was last there.

They have a ton of locked up aisles now in drug/health and beauty. Basically all hair accessories (even little $2 combs) are locked up, all deodorant is locked up, some diabetic items are locked up, all shaving is locked up. Nothing in Cosmetics (department in a bullcage with a separate register that is never stocked, never staffed anymore, and is probably in stock on about 20% of its SKUs) is locked up yet other than a very small number of items.

But the biggest change is they put a liquor bullcage in with its own register. Of course this register wasn't staffed either. Also they put this at the back of the store, basically barricading 3 grocery aisles so you can no longer enter those aisles from where the cheese/dairy wall is, you have to walk around and enter it from the middle of the store instead. What is also weird about the way they set this up is as you stand at the register in the employee position (yes I stood there since nobody was there) the way the area is configured and the way the register is positioned the employee standing there can only see about 1/3 of the way down one of these liquor aisles and cannot see anything in the other liquor aisles. So I don't even know what they point of this is. They also made multiple other grocery aisles more narrow to make space for this. The register is very awkward as the register is like, an endcap. The employee is basically standing on an endcap space. I can't wait to see how many times that employee gets hit by employees coming off of the next aisle over with a shopping cart with that blind corner not realizing an employee is there.

Whoever designs these bullcage departments that are makeshift in the Wal Mart units around Reno (probably local loss prevention) does a terrible job.

[SamSpade]

Babs beat me to it with the Portland news. I am assuming this will also somehow impact Walmart+ and/or regular Walmart.com customers seeking delivery.

I have a friend on public assistance living in the N. Portland peninsula area and know that they regularly had issues with the Hayden Meadows store but they had to use Walmart.com because (until recently) they were the only grocer accepting EBT as payment.

[Brian Lutz]

I'm a little surprised Walmart has much presence in Portland in the first place, it seems like the big West Coast blue cities (Seattle, Portland, SF, etc.) are generally run by people that are extremely hostile toward Walmart (and if they don't succeed in keeping them away there's plenty of other activist types that'll try to get them shut down.) Sam's Club did have one store in Seattle but it closed when they pulled out of the Pacific Northwest, and was promptly taken over by squatters.

That said, there aren't many options for Walmart to open stores in some of these areas, especially with limited and expensive real estate. In order to open a store in Bellevue Walmart opted to turn a vacant former Mervyn's in Factoria Mall (Marketplace at Factoria) into a Supercenter store. It was a rather small (70k SF) and awkwardly laid out store, and I suspect it didn't do well because they opted not to renew the 10 year lease and closed it in April of 2022.

[babs]

I'm a little surprised Walmart has much presence in Portland in the first place, it seems like the big West Coast blue cities (Seattle, Portland, SF, etc.) are generally run by people that are extremely hostile toward Walmart (and if they don't succeed in keeping them away there's plenty of other activist types that'll try to get them shut down.) Sam's Club did have one store in Seattle but it closed when they pulled out of the Pacific Northwest, and was promptly taken over by squatters.

That said, there aren't many options for Walmart to open stores in some of these areas, especially with limited and expensive real estate. In order to open a store in Bellevue Walmart opted to turn a vacant former Mervyn's in Factoria Mall (Marketplace at Factoria) into a Supercenter store. It was a rather small (70k SF) and awkwardly laid out store, and I suspect it didn't do well because they opted not to renew the 10 year lease and closed it in April of 2022.

Walmart has been a non-factor in the Portland area. I'm not sure if there is any other metro area where Walmart has a smaller presence/market share than Portland. From the tough land-use laws making large stores hard to site to city officials doing whatever they can to block them, this isn't an area where Walmart does much business.

The Hayden Meadows store was only about 85,000 sq ft yet was still considered a superstore. The few times I've been there, it was always busy. The city let them in since the zoning for the area allowed larger format stores and it replaced a vacant Best catalog showroom store that for some reason never opened. The Eastport Plaza store is a redeveloped shopping mall where they snuck in. The still-open Tigard store was supposed to be a Target but the developer at the last minute changed the tenant after the store was approved and Target pulled out of the location. The building footprint is a Target store. Wood Village seemed to welcome them in. Contrast that with Vancouver where Walmart has four stores plus a neighborhood market.

The Oregonian story above is a joke as the writer failed to mention the real reason these store is closing is because of massive theft issues. She doesn't even seem to bother to ask the Walmart spokesperson about theft. Totally clueless!

Look for more store closures in the area. The Target at Jantzen Beach has massive issues with theft. The shelves are often bare. Now the store has many aisles behind glass cases locked up. They have multiple well-armed wannabe SWAT officers walking the store. If the new bridge proposal actually happens, as I understand it, the only access to the island will be from Delta Park over a special bridge. No direct access off I-5. The will kill off the remaining retail.

Until Portland starts taking shoplifting seriously, more stores will close. Just last week, Nike asked for off-duty police officers (which Nike would pay for) be stationed at both the downtown store and the outlet on MLK. The city turned them down. The MLK store has been closed for months, expect the downtown store to close as well.

[Brian Lutz]

Coincidentally, in January the Nike Town store in Downtown Seattle closed after 27 years. Nike recently opened a new Factory store at the Factoria Mall (taking over a long vacant former Old Country Buffet) and appears to be planning to open a large store in Bellevue Square that will presumably be the replacement for the Nike Town store.

[babs]

Coincidentally, in January the Nike Town store in Downtown Seattle closed after 27 years. Nike recently opened a new Factory store at the Factoria Mall (taking over a long vacant former Old Country Buffet) and appears to be planning to open a large store in Bellevue Square that will presumably be the replacement for the Nike Town store.

Nike is also building a new store at Bridgeport Village. That could be the replacement store in Portland. However, it's much smaller so I'm not sure how much of a replacement it really is.

[Super S]

I'm a little surprised Walmart has much presence in Portland in the first place, it seems like the big West Coast blue cities (Seattle, Portland, SF, etc.) are generally run by people that are extremely hostile toward Walmart (and if they don't succeed in keeping them away there's plenty of other activist types that'll try to get them shut down.) Sam's Club did have one store in Seattle but it closed when they pulled out of the Pacific Northwest, and was promptly taken over by squatters.

That said, there aren't many options for Walmart to open stores in some of these areas, especially with limited and expensive real estate. In order to open a store in Bellevue Walmart opted to turn a vacant former Mervyn's in Factoria Mall (Marketplace at Factoria) into a Supercenter store. It was a rather small (70k SF) and awkwardly laid out store, and I suspect it didn't do well because they opted not to renew the 10 year lease and closed it in April of 2022.

Walmart has been a non-factor in the Portland area. I'm not sure if there is any other metro area where Walmart has a smaller presence/market share than Portland. From the tough land-use laws making large stores hard to site to city officials doing whatever they can to block them, this isn't an area where Walmart does much business.

The Hayden Meadows store was only about 85,000 sq ft yet was still considered a superstore. The few times I've been there, it was always busy. The city let them in since the zoning for the area allowed larger format stores and it replaced a vacant Best catalog showroom store that for some reason never opened. The Eastport Plaza store is a redeveloped shopping mall where they snuck in. The still-open Tigard store was supposed to be a Target but the developer at the last minute changed the tenant after the store was approved and Target pulled out of the location. The building footprint is a Target store. Wood Village seemed to welcome them in. Contrast that with Vancouver where Walmart has four stores plus a neighborhood market.

The Oregonian story above is a joke as the writer failed to mention the real reason these store is closing is because of massive theft issues. She doesn't even seem to bother to ask the Walmart spokesperson about theft. Totally clueless!

Look for more store closures in the area. The Target at Jantzen Beach has massive issues with theft. The shelves are often bare. Now the store has many aisles behind glass cases locked up. They have multiple well-armed wannabe SWAT officers walking the store. If the new bridge proposal actually happens, as I understand it, the only access to the island will be from Delta Park over a special bridge. No direct access off I-5. The will kill off the remaining retail.

Until Portland starts taking shoplifting seriously, more stores will close. Just last week, Nike asked for off-duty police officers (which Nike would pay for) be stationed at both the downtown store and the outlet on MLK. The city turned them down. The MLK store has been closed for months, expect the downtown store to close as well.

Jantzen Beach and Hayden Meadows as a whole seems to be declining. Several restaurants have shut down now including Cracker Barrel, Stanford's, Elmer's, and recently announced was B.J.'s.

What always puzzled me though is how Portland welcomed some retailers with open arms in the Jantzen Beach/Hayden Meadows area and allowed them to open massive stores with no opposition. Those include Lowe's (which is practically across from the Hayden Meadows Walmart), Target, Home Depot, Floor & Decor, as well as other big-boxes that have opened during various stages of redevelopment at Jantzen Beach. Yet Walmart was only allowed into an existing building and that Hayden Meadows store seemed set up to fail.

Worth noting is that there is still a conventional Walmart just to the south on 82nd. Ave. at Otty Road, which isn't too far from Eastport Plaza. That one was originally a Home Depot, which moved just to the north to a former Home Base at 82nd & Johnson Creek when Home Base closed.

Walmart doesn't typically sell to a competitor, and Fred Meyer did close their store at 82nd & Foster, but I gotta wonder if Fred Meyer could make a go at Eastport. Although Fred Meyer is obviously dealing with theft as evidenced by the Gateway store...

[retailfanmitchell019]

Walmart has been a non-factor in the Portland area. I'm not sure if there is any other metro area where Walmart has a smaller presence/market share than Portland. From the tough land-use laws making large stores hard to site to city officials doing whatever they can to block them, this isn't an area where Walmart does much business.

Walmart is no higher than #7 in the NYC metro. There isn't a single Walmart in New York City.
https://chainstoreguide.com/offthechain ... ket-share/
I think Walmart also has low grocery share around Seattle, Boston, coastal CA markets.
In all of Canada, Walmart is only #5 in grocery market share.
https://www.flandersinvestmentandtrade. ... 202020.pdf