Retail Store Closures Slow in 2026 as Value Retailers Grow

For three straight years, the retail headlines have been dominated by closures — bankruptcies, liquidations, and shrinking footprints. The latest data says that story is finally turning. Closures are projected to fall to their lowest level in three years, openings are rising, and the retailers doing the expanding tell you exactly where the consumer is headed. Here’s what it means if you own retail real estate.

The Numbers Are Improving

Coresight Research, which tracks announced store activity nationwide, projects roughly 7,900 store closures this year — down about 4.5% from last year and the lowest tally in three years. At the same time, it expects about 5,500 store openings, up roughly 4.4%. The gap between closures and openings is still negative, but it’s narrowing meaningfully — and several major research houses now expect net openings as the year progresses.

Who's Growing — and Who's Shrinking

The expansion list is led by exactly the tenants net lease investors know best. Dollar General, Aldi, and Tractor Supply top the list of planned openings. Aldi alone plans more than 180 new stores across 31 states this year. Off-price, discount grocery, and value concepts are bulking up aggressively — a direct response to consumers trading down in a tight-budget environment.

On the other side, the closure list is led by GameStop, Francesca’s, and Walgreens. The Walgreens story is the one net lease owners should watch closest: the chain is continuing a multi-year plan to shrink its footprint by roughly 1,200 stores, with several hundred more closures expected this year. If you own a pharmacy property, this is precisely why the lease guarantee and the real estate fundamentals matter more than the logo — a theme we covered in our CVS vs. Walgreens analysis.

The Supply Side Is the Real Story

Here’s the part that doesn’t make headlines: there isn’t much space left to fill. The wave of bankruptcies in recent years — Bed Bath & Beyond, Joann, Forever 21, Party City — released a large block of well-located retail space, and expanding retailers absorbed most of it quickly. New construction remains historically low because elevated labor and borrowing costs make most speculative retail development impossible to pencil.

Expanding retailers are now competing for a shrinking pool of quality space — and not just against each other. Fast-growing food and beverage concepts and fitness operators are chasing the same end caps and pads. Industry analysts are already warning of a genuine space shortage by the end of the decade. For landlords, scarce supply is pricing power.

What This Means for Property Owners

Vacancy risk is increasingly tenant-specific, not market-wide. With supply tight and openings rising, a well-located box that goes dark is a re-leasing project, not a stranded asset. The question is your specific tenant’s health, not the health of retail.

Value tenants are the demand engine. If your property is leased to a discounter, dollar store, or off-price concept, the expansion data confirms what our comps show: these tenants are the most reliable source of demand in the market. See our Dollar General and Tractor Supply tenant profiles for current pricing.

Watch your tenant’s announcements, not the industry’s. A closure plan at the chain level (like Walgreens’) shows up in individual stores’ fate years in advance. If your tenant is on a shrink list, the time to evaluate a sale is before the closure map is published, not after.

The Bottom Line

Retail’s right-sizing cycle is winding down. Closures are at a three-year low, value retailers are expanding into a market with almost no new supply, and pricing power is quietly shifting back to landlords who own well-located real estate. The risk that remains is concentrated in specific struggling chains — which makes knowing your tenant’s trajectory the most important piece of underwriting you can do.