Portland area Walmarts to permanently close 

Posted April 27, 2023

By Alicia Pacheco Juarez

News Editor

Not meeting financial expectations has led the Walmarts located at 1123 North Hayden Meadows Drive and at 4200 Southeast 82nd Avenue at the Eastport Plaza permanently closed at the end of March.

The two most known Walmarts in the area have laid off approximately 580 employees after announcing their closing. So far there are many other states in which Walmart stores have been closing, including Arkansas, Illinois, Florida, Washington D.C, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. But although their two major stores in Portland are closing, Walmart stores remain in Gresham, Happy Valley, Vancouver, and West Linn. 

Walmart stores have struggled for the past months with theft, which led to the company’s CEO back in December to tell CNBC that it could lead to prices rising or store closures, as stated in The Oregonian. In total, the state of Oregon contains 45 Walmart stores, and apart from these two closures, no other Oregon stores are planned to close in the upcoming months.

Most stores that have been closing in the past couple of years partly due to homelessness and drug use around certain stores, and crime in general, which affects not only the stores, but the area in general. Portland has seen a dramatic rise in homelessness since 2019.