Walmart (WMT) has made a major decision that will affect multiple communities.
People are not happy with the change and even expressed a sense of abandonment.
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The retail chain says it is closing four stores in Chicago on April 16.
The affected locations are the Chatham Supercenter (which includes a health center), the Kenwood Neighborhood Market, the Lakeview Neighborhood Market and the Little Village Neighborhood Market.
"This is going to cause a lot of issues for people in the community," said Chatham resident Regina Dickey, who visits a primary care clinic attached to the Walmart store there, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. "Not cool."
"It's like they didn’t even give a thought to the people in these communities," Dickey added.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot seems to agree.
"Unceremoniously abandoning these neighborhoods will create barriers to basic needs for thousands of residents," Lightfoot said in a statement, according to the Sun-Times. "Walmart also needs to ensure that our residents in these communities that have been left behind will continue to have a reliable source for their everyday necessities. We as a City will do everything in our power to do the same."
Walmart issued a news release addressing the store closures.
"The decision to close a store is never easy. The impact is greater than just closing a building. It affects people -- people who work in, shop in and live in communities near our stores -- and we never take that lightly," the news release said. "Treating people and communities with respect and compassion during this transition will guide everything we do."
The company explained its reasoning for the decision:
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. The remaining four Chicago stores continue to face the same business difficulties, but we think this decision gives us the best chance to help keep them open and serving the community.
Over the years, we have tried many different strategies to improve the business performance of these locations, including building smaller stores, localizing product assortment and offering services beyond traditional retail. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the city, including $70 million in the last couple years to upgrade our stores and build two new Walmart Health facilities and a Walmart Academy training center.
It was hoped that these investments would help improve our stores’ performance. Unfortunately, these efforts have not materially improved the fundamental business challenges our stores are facing.
Community and city leaders have been open and supportive as we met with them over the years to share these challenges. As we looked for solutions, it became even more clear that for these stores, there was nothing leaders could do to help get us to the point where they would be profitable.
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