Advance Auto Is Exiting 700 Sites -- But It Is Still Opening More Of These Stores

Advance Auto Parts is closing ~700 stores in 2025 but still plans to more than triple the number of it its Big Box Market Hub stores over the next 3 years

Advance Auto Parts recently announced plans to close 523 corporate stores in 2025 and exit from 204 sites that are operated by independent owners.

But in spite of these closures, Advance Auto is still planning to open new stores.

Especially its extra large "Market Hub" stores that are 3-5x the size of a typical ~8,000 square foot Advance Auto Parts location.

Advance Auto’s Market Hub stores serve not only as retail sites but also as mini-distribution centers that supply products to as many as 50 Advance Auto stores in a particular submarket.

While Advance Auto currently operates 18 market hub stores, it wants to open at least 60 more over the next 3 years.

So where will most of these market hub stores be located?

Mostly in "2nd generation" Big Box real estate that was once home to other retailers.

Like the ~24,000 square foot Advance Auto Market Hub store in Harrisburg, PA that opened in 2021.

It opened in space that was vacated by Get Air Trampoline Park in 2020 — and had once been occupied by Office Max more than a decade ago.

Other auto parts supply retailers have also been opening larger hub stores.

AutoZone, the largest auto parts supply retailer in the U.S. with over 7,000 locations, operates over 100 “Mega Hubs” across its network of stores.

AutoZone Mega Hubs are 20,000 - 30,000 square feet and can carry over 100,000 parts.

Like with Advance Auto, the AutoZone Mega Hubs both provide enhanced product inventories as well as as serve as mini-distribution centers to replenish inventory at smaller AutoZone stores in the area.

AutoZone wants to add another ~100 Mega Hubs over the next several years and it is targeting vacant Big Box space for the real estate it needs to open these new stores.

In fact at least 6 current AutoZone Mega Hubs are repurposes of former Toys R Us buildings.

O’Reilly Auto Parts, the #2 auto parts supply retailer in the U.S. with over 6,000 locations, has approximately 385 hub stores in its network.

The O’Reilly hub stores are 14,000 square feet on average, or roughly twice the size of its standard ~7,000 square foot store.

But O’Reilly has also recently introduced “Super Hubs” to its store network.

Super Hubs are much larger than previous O’Reilly hub stores and are typically located in densely populated areas and major MSAs throughout the country.

Like its rivals, O’Reilly is also repurposing vacant Big Box retail space for use as Super Hubs.

For instance, last year O’Reilly opened a 50,000 square foot Super Hub store in a Littleton, Colorado shopping center in a space that was previously occupied by a furniture retailer.

An upcoming O’Reilly Super Hub set to open in Hobart, Indiana in the coming weeks is also in a 50,000 square foot space that was formerly home to a Big Box retailer.

So while Advance Auto will be trimming its store count in the coming year, these closures do not tell the whole real estate story for the company — or the auto parts industry.

All three major auto parts supply retailers — Advance Auto, Auto Zone and O’Reilly — continue to add new and larger “hub” stores through adaptive reuse and backfills of 2nd generation Big Box real estate.