Walmart To Close White Plains Store

The poorly performing downtown White Plains store — which occupies two floors totaling 179,000 square feet of leased retail space — will be closing its doors on August 10, 2018. Walmart occupies the former Sears location on Main Street. 

Walmart representatives claim that part of the problem the store had was that the location's parking garage was less than ideal. One complaint that was not Walmart-specific is the lack of convenient parking in White Plains overall. In fact, the White Plains Common Council and the White Plains Parking Authority just raised the parking rates even higher about one week ago! This may chase away even more business along with the extended hours of parking meter operations (until 9PM).

One Walmart complaint beyond parking is that they manage to undersell other retailers in the area hurting businesses in the general vicinity. Whenever Walmart announces a new store is going to be built, it's usually the "kiss-of-death" for the immediate area unless the existing retailers are savvy enough to adapt and provide a higher level of service or uniqueness. 

To their credit, they have greeters of all types at their entrance, offer part-time employees benefits, and do donate to area charities. The White Plains store employs 395 people, and the company intends to transfer those who qualify to different Walmart locations. No plans yet exist for the location. Currently, the Walmart management typically looks to develop Super Centers that offer groceries as well as all of the other items that can be found in their "standard" stores. Given the area taxes and costs, we doubt Walmart will be developing a Super Center in Westchester County.