Walmart is shutting down four stores in Chicago as they bleed money.
The stores closing Sunday are throughout the city, from the Lakeview neighborhood in the north to Little Village in the west and stores in Kenwood and Chatham on the south side. The location in Chatham also housed a clinic and Walmart Academy where employees got career-based training.
“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,” Walmart said in a press release.
The company said its remaining four stores in the city face similar challenges but the closures will give them a better chance of staying open.
Local residents are already feeling the sting of Walmart’s departure.
“I think it’s terrible,” Chatham customer Norma Gregory told local ABC affiliate WLS-TV. “Target left, now Walmart is gone; we don’t have anything in our community anymore.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a statement to WGN-TV that the company “unceremoniously abandoning these neighborhoods will create barriers to basic needs for thousands of residents.”
Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson said in his own statement to WLS that Walmart’s exit “will leave a void in the communities they serve, particularly stores located in communities that have historically lacked options for grocery stores and pharmacies.”
Crime wasn’t mentioned in Walmart’s press release, but the city is witnessing a 45% increase in crime in 2023. While murders are down (-17%) compared with 2022, robbery (15%), burglary (6%) and theft (22%) are up this year.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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