Walmart plans 650 store remodels, adding new stores in 2026

Walmart’s next big store push will be felt on the floor long before it shows up in polished signage or wider aisles. The company said it planned more than 650 scheduled remodels of Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets in 2026, plus about 20 new store openings in 2026 and early 2027, a rollout that will force store teams to keep selling while layouts, traffic patterns and work routines shift around them.

For hourly associates, the first pressure points usually land in grocery, pharmacy, pickup and the front end. Walmart said updated stores may include wider aisles, expanded pickup and delivery services, updated Vision Centers and pharmacies with private consultation rooms, new digital touchpoints and refreshed interiors and exteriors. That means more resets, more wayfinding questions from shoppers and more coordination between stockers, cashiers, pharmacy staff and managers when aisles close, fixtures change or online orders have to move through a new staging area.

The company said some Neighborhood Markets are getting a rapid remodel program designed to minimize customer disruption, but even a faster project still creates a moving target for schedules and labor. Department managers will have to line up freight, signage, markdowns and reset deadlines against construction work. Assistant managers will need to keep coverage tight while customer flow changes day by day. Overnight crews are often the first to absorb the extra workload, especially when product has to be moved, sorted and restaged after work on walls, cases or checkout lanes.

Walmart said the remodels and openings are part of a broader effort to create jobs, strengthen local economies and make shopping faster and more convenient. The company had already opened several new stores in 2026, including Supercenters in Eastvale, California; Apollo Beach, Florida; Jacksonville, Florida; and The Villages, Florida, plus a Neighborhood Market in Ocala, Florida. Later in 2026, Walmart planned an expansion of the Supercenter in Tucson, Arizona, and a new Supercenter in Celina, Texas.

The remodel wave also fits Walmart’s larger real-estate strategy. In early 2024, the company said it would build or convert more than 150 stores over five years while continuing to remodel existing stores. It said it opened nine new stores in 2025 across Alabama, California, Florida, New Jersey, Texas and Utah. In its 2025 annual report, Walmart said comparable sales include remodeled, relocated, expanded and converted stores and clubs, showing that the company treats these projects as part of core performance, not just cosmetic upgrades.

That matters now because Walmart is still leaning hard into stores even as online sales grow. Its fiscal 2026 annual report said eCommerce sales reached $150.4 billion and revenue rose 4.7%, while CEO John Furner said the company was at a pivotal moment as artificial intelligence reshapes how customers shop and how associates work. The stores are where that strategy becomes real: in the aisle moves, the pharmacy rebuilds, the pickup changes and the overnight resets that workers will be asked to absorb first.