Walmart closing three San Antonio stores

Walmart Stores Inc. closed its Neighborhood Market store on Nacogdoches Road near MacArthur High School in 2017. The gas station has since been removed. The location will become North East ISD’s high school cybersecurity magnet program next year. less Walmart Stores Inc. closed its Neighborhood Market store on Nacogdoches Road near MacArthur High School in 2017. The gas station has since been removed. The location will become North East ISD’s high school ... more Photo: Joshua Fechter / Photo: Joshua Fechter / Image 1 of / 45 Caption Close Walmart closing three San Antonio stores 1 / 45 Back to Gallery

Walmart Stores Inc. will close three stores in San Antonio next month, a company spokeswoman said Wednesday — the latest in a series of area closures for the retail giant.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer, which currently has about 48 stores in the San Antonio region, will shutter three of its Neighborhood Market format stores on Oct. 12 — 6938 Walzem Road near Windcrest, 3418 E. Southcross on the city’s Southeast Side and 3847 Pleasanton Road on the South Side, company spokeswoman Anne Hatfield said.

Each of the three stores has about 70 employees, who were notified of the closures Wednesday morning, Hatfield said. Walmart is working with each of them to see whether they would like to transfer to another area store, she said.

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The company’s smaller Neighborhood Market format is popular among Walmart shoppers, Hatfield said, but all three closing locations have other Walmart stores within three miles. Meanwhile, Walmart is spending $277 million in Texas on store renovations and adding features like home grocery delivery, grocery pickup at stores and “pickup towers” — essentially giant vending machines at its brick-and-mortar stores that dispense orders placed online.

Grocery pickup is currently available at 24 stores in the San Antonio area and the company is adding pickup towers to some locations, Hatfield said. Walmart rolled out home grocery delivery in San Antonio in July, she said.

“What we’re doing is we’re readjusting our store mix,” Hatfield said. “At the same time, we’re investing heavily in technology, services and upgrades throughout San Antonio.”

Walmart is closing the three stores months after it shuttered another Neighborhood Market store in December on the city’s Northeast Side and a Sam’s Club store at 12919 San Pedro Ave. in January — the latter of which was part of a wave of 63 Sam’s Club stores that were closed that month.

Joshua Fechter is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering retail and tourism. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports