27 Kohl's Stores Are Closing in 2025; What Is Planned For The Real Estate?
A warehouse, school campus and grocery store are among the planned reuses and backfills of the upcoming Kohl's store closures
Last week Kohl’s announced plans to close 27 stores in Spring 2025.
The closures account for just 2% of the ~1,200 Kohl’s stores but will still result in over 2 MM square feet of retail vacancy.
However re-tenanting and redevelopment plans are already underway for several Kohl’s sites to convert them into a warehouse, a school campus and a grocery store, among other uses.
Over 80% of Kohl’s stores are ~80,000 - 100,000 square foot buildings located in outdoor strip centers.
~13% of Kohl’s stores are freestanding buildings and just 5% are located in regional malls.
So what does the makeup of the 27 store closings in 2025 reveal about Kohl’s strategy — and what are the plans for the real estate?
First a few statistics on the 27 upcoming store closures:
Although Kohl’s owns the real estate for ~35% of its stores, nearly all the 27 closings are in leased space with near term expirations
4 of the closing stores are attached to regional malls — including two “dead” malls in Ohio and Illinois where Kohl’s was the last remaining store and demolition is planned
4 stores slated for closure are freestanding buildings that are not attached to malls or shopping centers (and well suited for non-retail repurpose options)
The closings also include 2 of 4 ~35,000 square foot “small format” stores that Kohl’s opened in 2017
Additionally, even though the closings were just announced last week, many Landlords had been aware of the upcoming vacancies for months or perhaps even years.
In some cases they have already lined up replacement uses.
For instance, the freestanding Kohl’s building in Stoughton, MA was advertised last year as available for a potential retail, industrial or storage reuse — even as the retailer continued to operate.
It sold last month for ~$18.5 MM to CJ Shaughnessy Crane, a mobile crane service operator that plans to use it for warehousing and storage once Kohl’s vacates.
Meanwhile, the Kohl’s property in Mountain View, CA is set to be turned into a new campus for the Bullis Charter School — a development that has been long in the making.
The Los Altos, CA School District acquired a ~12 acre site in the San Antonio Shopping Center — which included the Kohl’s and adjacent Big Box buildings — in 2019.
The district finished its capital raise for the school campus after voters approved a $350 MM bond in November.
The Kohl’s store and adjacent buildings are to be demolished and replaced with new classrooms, parking and a four acre park with a track, soccer fields and a baseball diamond that will be available to area residents.
Another upcoming store closure — the Kohl’s in downtown Napa, CA — has long been targeted for redevelopment.
Zapolski Real Estate had purchased the Kohl’s building in 2015 and systematically acquired adjacent buildings and even a city owned parking lot to pave the way for a proposed $250 MM+ redevelopment of the site.
But in 2022 it sold the property to a development group that now plans to demolish the Kohl’s building and replace it with ~15,000 square feet of retail space, 77 condos and a 165 room hotel.
Many of the Kohl’s stores slated for closure will be too large for a single tenant.
But that may not preclude one tenant from leasing the entire space.
For instance, the German grocer Lidl has purportedly leased the entire ~100,000 square foot soon-to-be-vacant Kohl’s building in Herndon, VA.
Lidl tentatively plans to divide the building into three separate units.
It would then operate a grocery store in the middle ~30,000 square foot suite and lease the two endcap spaces to other tenants.
It is likely that other Kohl’s stores will also be subdivided for multiple tenants.
And there are several previously subdivided Kohl’s stores that developers and retailers can look to for examples.
In fact Kohl’s itself has even previously downsized portions of its own stores in certain markets.
In 2018 Kohl’s formed a partnership with ALDI which allowed the grocer to take space left over by the downsizing of a Kohl’s store.
The first such Kohl’s-ALDI combo store in Waukesha, WI opened in 2019.
Approximately 5 - 10 other Kohl’s stores have also been downsized and paired with ALDI.
Kohl’s has periodically closed stores in recent years — which have provided additional repurpose and adaptive reuse examples.
Such as a ~100,000 square foot freestanding former Kohl’s building on a 10 acre site in Tallahassee, FL that closed in 2016.
It sold a few years later for ~$5 MM and was re-zoned to permit a reuse as a Cubesmart indoor storage facility.
Of course it was not too long ago that Kohl’s — in the midst of a growth and expansion phase — itself frequently took over real estate vacated by other retailers.
15 years ago Kohl’s acquired the leases to more than three dozen former Mervyn’s stores during that retailer’s bankruptcy.
And Kohl’s has backfilled all or part of roughly 50 former Kmart stores over the past couple of decades — including a store in Elko, Nevada that opened just 5 years ago.
While several sites have a head start, redevelopment or re-tenanting plans are not yet in place for all 27 of the Kohl’s stores closing in 2025 — so opportunities may still exist for retailers looking to expand or developers seeking adaptive re-use projects.