Ever since the internet, it seems like a constant drumbeat. Closures. Restructuring. “Retail Apocalypse” recycled for the tenth time. Meanwhile, if you actually drive through major retail corridors, there is always the morning rush, traffic at lunch time, and busy parking lots in the evening after work. Cars still wrap through drive-thrus. Grocery parking lots are full on Sunday morning.
What’s really happening is operators are cutting loose the stores that never should have been opened. Or the ones that made sense five years ago and don’t anymore.
We broke down Walgreens a while back. In late 2024, it announced plans to close roughly 1,200 stores. Those are 13,000 to 15,000 square foot buildings, usually on signalized intersections that once felt untouchable. Some of those sites are still outstanding. Some were coasting on Walgreens credit and finally got exposed.
Then Amazon Fresh, which was smaller but more of a surprise. It shut down the entire format, which was 72 stores. 30,000 to 40,000 square foot buildings in many cases. Brand new construction. Some in great retail locations. Amazon decided the Amazon Fresh brand bet didn’t fit versus continuing to build out Whole Foods.
Different tenants and different fact patterns but the landlords who are sitting on A+ locations will do fine. The others could be in for some turbulence.
Pharmacy and grocery demand operational discipline given their tight margins.
CVS plans to close roughly 900 stores over a multi-year stretch. That’s about ten percent of the footprint. Most of those buildings are 10,000 to 13,000 square feet. If you’ve walked enough of them, you could feel which ones were thin on sales long before the corporation said it out loud.
Kroger will cut around 60 underperforming stores. Typical footprint is 50,000 square feet. Grocery is steady until margins tighten and labor costs climb. Then weak performers in secondary trade areas get trimmed.
Department stores will continue to shut down
Macy’s closed 66 stores in 2025 and plans another dozen or so in 2026. Those are 100,000 to 150,000 square foot anchors. When one goes dark, the mall feels hollow. Sometimes that anchor space gets carved up and reborn. Sometimes it just sits there like a reminder of 2005.
Saks Off 5th is closing about 57 stores as part of restructuring. Twenty to thirty thousand square feet. Lifestyle centers that once felt bulletproof are now trying to figure out the next direction to bring life into their centers.
Wendy’s announced it plans to close roughly 5 to 6 percent of its U.S. restaurants in the first half of 2026. That works out to somewhere around 300 stores based on about 6,000 domestic units. This follows 240 closures in 2024 and additional cuts in 2025. A typical Wendy’s is 2,400 to 2,800 square feet with a drive-thru. Corporate has been blunt. Underperforming units are getting cut so capital can flow to stronger stores and new formats.
Pizza Hut is shutting around 250 locations. Mostly legacy dine-in units. Two to three thousand square feet. The red-roof boxes that worked in the 90s and haven’t performed in years.
Burger King has been cleaning up franchisee portfolios. Roughly 300 to 400 closures tied to weak operators and soft stores. It’s about 5% of the system.
Subway has been shrinking for years. Thousands of net closures over time. Still optimizing.
That’s pharmacy, grocery, department store, discount apparel, and QSR all trimming in the same cycle. Hundreds of vacant sites are hitting the market this year.
Some of these sites were weak from day one. Bad access. Tight parking. Tertiary trade areas that never had the population to support multiple brands and/or growing rents. They were held up by tenant credit and long leases. Once unit level performance dropped into the red, they were quick to be dismissed.
Other sites are excellent pieces of real estate attached to concepts that are no longer as strong as they once were 10 years ago.
If you’ve ever had a Walgreens or an older QSR go dark on a strong corner, you know the difference immediately. The phone starts ringing. Other tenants sniff around. Brokers quickly ask if you’ll entertain offers. The site doesn’t sit long.
When the location is weak, it just sits there. You start calling tenants. You start talking about TI packages and concessions. You start negotiating with yourself.
Investors want to own the sites that tenants compete for. The ones that create inbound interest when a lease expires. The ones that can command market rent or better because the underlying real estate fundamentals are strong and are highly desirable for multiple uses.
That’s why paying attention to store closures and struggling concepts matters.
When Wendy’s cuts five percent of its fleet, where are those stores? Which corridors? Which demographic profiles? When CVS trims 900 units, are they urban heavy? Suburban fringe? Redundant trade areas? Those patterns tell you where demand is thinning and where it’s still strong.
At DealGround we track that market activity constantly. Not in theory. Specific addresses. Specific tenants. Specific owners.
When a major operator announces a wave of closures, that’s the starting gun. Someone will reposition that asset. The only question is whether you know who owns it and how fast you can get to them.
We help brokers and investors move in that window. We organize ownership information. Tenant context layered in. Historical transaction data sitting there so you’re not guessing what similar assets traded for.
Retail churn is constant. Strong real estate absorbs it. Weak real estate gets exposed by it.
The buildings don’t disappear. The traffic lights still cycle red to green. Cars still stack up in the right corridors.
Target those corridors. Track the tenants. Move fast when the opportunity arises.
