OAN Roy Francis
8:47 AM PT – Saturday, March 4, 2023
Walmart has announced that it will be closing all of its stores in Portland, Oregon permanently.
According to KPTV, the decision behind closing their location is due to poor performance and financial reasons.
“We have nearly 5,000 stores across the U.S. and unfortunately some do not meet our financial expectations,” Walmart said in its announcement. “While our underlying business is strong, these specific stores haven’t performed as well as we hoped.”
The two remaining locations that Walmart will be shuttering are at Hayden Meadows, and East Part Plaza with 580 employees currently employed at the two locations. Both locations will be closing on March 24th.
Walmart has given its employees at both locations the option to be transferred to a location outside of the city. The pharmacies at those two locations will also be working with customers to transfer their prescriptions to other nearby locations.
“We are grateful to the customers who have given us the privilege of serving them at our Hayden Meadows and Eastport Plaza locations,” Walmart said.
This announcement comes a few months after Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart had warned that due to high retail crimes, certain locations will have to close and prices could increase.
However, a spokesperson told Fox News that “there is no single cause for why a store closes.”
“We do a thorough review of how a store performs and weigh many factors before making the difficult decision to close a facility,” the spokesperson said. “We consider many factors, including current and projected financial performance, location, population, customer needs, and the proximity of other nearby stores when making these difficult decisions. Our focus right now is taking care of our associates during this transition and working with our customers to transition their pharmacy, and other, shopping needs to nearby stores.”
Walmart is among many other stores who already have, or plan on closing their locations in Portland, many due to high crime in the area. Nike, Cracker Barrel, and the clothing shop Rains PDX have all closed their locations reportedly due to high crime and security reasons.
“Our city is in peril,” a printed note posted on a closed Rains PDX store read. “Small businesses (and large) cannot sustain doing business, in our city’s current state. We have no protection, or recourse, against the criminal behavior that goes unpunished. Do not be fooled into thinking that insurance companies cover losses. We have sustained 15 break-ins, we have not received any financial reimbursement since the 3rd.”
Walmart however, has announced the closure of location in other states as well such as Arkansas, Florida, Washington D.C., Wisconsin, New Mexico, and Illinois.
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