Walmart leaving Portland

OAN Roy Francis
8:47 AM PT – Saturday, March 4, 2023

Walmart recently announced that all of its Portland-based stores will close permanently.

KPTV reports that the closure of their facility was due to financial and poor performance.

“We have nearly 5,000 stores across the U.S. and unfortunately some do not meet our financial expectations,” Walmart stated this in their announcement. “While our underlying business is strong, these specific stores haven’t performed as well as we hoped.”

Walmart will close the remaining two retail locations at Hayden Meadows (with 580 people currently working at these locations) and East Part Plaza. On March 24, both locations will close.^Th.

Walmart offers its workers the chance to transfer to another location. These pharmacies will work with customers to move prescriptions to another nearby location.

“We are grateful to the customers who have given us the privilege of serving them at our Hayden Meadows and Eastport Plaza locations,” Walmart stated.

The announcement is made a few months ago by Doug McMillon (the CEO of Walmart), who warned that high levels of retail crime would force certain stores to close, and could cause prices to rise.

Fox News spokesperson said that however, “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 stated. “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 one of many stores that have closed or are planning to close their Portland locations, due to the high level crime. High crime and security factors have reportedly led to the closure of Nike, Cracker Barrel, as well as Rains PDX clothing store.  

“Our city is in peril,” A printed note was posted in a Rains PDX shop. “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 announced however the closing of stores in Arkansas and Florida as well as Washington D.C. Washington D.C. Wisconsin New Mexico and Illinois.