Walmart announced a $330 million investment to automate its Louisiana distribution center this week. The same week, Amazon reported delivering over 8 billion items same-day or next-day in 2025, a 30% increase from the prior year. Tractor Supply is expanding delivery capabilities to 1,200 stores. Three announcements, same logic: the retailers who control speed control the customer.
I keep thinking about what this means for the physical footprint of retail. Every one of these announcements is a real estate decision dressed up as a tech story. Walmart's 42 regional distribution centers are getting robotic upgrades. Amazon is investing $4 billion to triple its delivery network by end of 2026. Tractor Supply is turning stores into final-mile hubs. The infrastructure layer underneath retail is being rebuilt, and the implications show up in lease negotiations, site selection criteria, and which markets matter.
ECONOMIC PULSE (Week of Feb 5, 2026)
Redbook Index: +6.7% YoY (week ending Jan 30) down from 7.1% prior week
Consumer Confidence: 84.5 (January) 12-year low, expectations at 65.1
Michigan Sentiment: 56.4 (January final) up from 52.9 December, February preliminary releases Friday
Fed Rate: 3.5%-3.75% (held steady Jan 29)
Food CPI: +3.1% YoY (December), January data releases Feb 11
Sources: FRED, Conference Board, University of Michigan, Federal Reserve, BLS
+30% YoY · $4B investment
Amazon Investment
$4B
Same-day expansion (2026)
Walmart Automation
$330M
Symbiotic deal
Speed Premium
+30%
Amazon same-day YoY
The signal: Speed is the new moat. Every major retailer is racing to same-day. For CRE, the question isn't if a space can fulfill—it's how fast.
Sources: Amazon, Walmart, Dollar General, Tractor Supply company announcements (January-February 2026)
Walmart's Automation Push
Walmart's $330 million investment in its Opelousas, Louisiana distribution center is part of a larger plan to upgrade all 42 of its regional distribution facilities with robotics and AI-powered automation. By early 2026, about two-thirds of Walmart stores will be serviced by some form of automation.
The numbers behind the push: Walmart expects 55% of fulfillment center volume to move through automated facilities and unit cost averages to improve by approximately 20%. The new facilities double storage and volume processing capacity compared to traditional distribution centers. Chilled and frozen automation handles perishables like strawberries and frozen chicken that get added to e-commerce orders or stocked on store shelves.
The five new automated distribution centers for fresh food are coming online in California (Shafter, already operational), Texas (Lancaster, recently opened), South Carolina (Wellford), Illinois (Belvidere), and New Jersey (Pilesgrove). Each facility runs about 700,000 square feet on average.
What this means: Walmart's automation investments create a different kind of distribution footprint. Fewer workers per square foot, more sophisticated equipment, and higher throughput. Markets near these facilities may see reduced hiring impact but sustained or increased logistics activity. For site selection, proximity to automated DCs becomes more valuable as speed-to-shelf improves.
Amazon's Delivery Record
Amazon delivered more than 8 billion items same-day or next-day to U.S. Prime members in 2025, a 30% increase over 2024. Globally, the company delivered 13 billion items at that speed. The company is investing over $4 billion to triple the size of its delivery network by end of 2026, with particular focus on smaller cities and rural communities.
Half of those fast deliveries were groceries and everyday essentials. The expansion reached more than 4,000 smaller cities, towns, and rural areas across 44 states during 2025. Retail TouchPoints reports that same-day delivery specifically saw a 70% year-over-year increase.
The infrastructure expansion comes as Amazon winds down its Fresh and Go grocery experiments. The company is closing all 72 of those stores and redirecting resources to Whole Foods, with more than 100 new locations planned. The delivery network investment and the grocery store closures are two sides of the same bet: Amazon thinks speed of delivery matters more than format experiments.
What this means: Amazon's rural delivery push changes convenience expectations in markets that e-commerce previously underserved. For retail tenants competing on convenience, the bar just got higher in secondary and tertiary markets. Track where Amazon's delivery network expands; those are markets where local retail faces increased pressure.
Final-Mile Fragmentation
Tractor Supply is expanding delivery capabilities to over 1,200 stores as it works to reduce transportation costs. The farm and ranch retailer is turning its store network into a final-mile delivery system. The company opened its 2,400th store recently and continues aggressive expansion while others are closing locations.
Dollar General expanded same-day delivery to more than 17,000 stores, concentrating on underserved rural areas. Costco and Instacart launched same-day delivery in Spain and France this week, extending a partnership that already covers U.S. and Canadian stores. UPS is processing 1.3 million packages daily through RFID technology at its UPS Store locations as retailers seek improved shipment visibility.
The pattern is consistent: retailers are converting stores into distribution nodes. The store-as-warehouse model has gone mainstream for chains with physical footprints.
What this means: Lease negotiations increasingly involve delivery and fulfillment considerations. Retailers want back-of-house flexibility, loading dock access, and zoning that permits frequent truck traffic. For landlords, understanding a tenant's delivery strategy is part of underwriting their viability.
Store Contraction Continues
Saks Global announced it will close all five remaining Last Call stores and wind down most Saks Off 5th locations as part of its Chapter 11 restructuring. The company is also ending its Saks business on Amazon. The post-bankruptcy strategy focuses entirely on full-price luxury: Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman.
Eddie Bauer is preparing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reportedly closing all 200 stores. This follows last week's Francesca's liquidation (450+ stores) and continues the pattern of mid-market apparel brands exiting physical retail.
The overall outlook: Coresight projects approximately 7,900 store closures in 2026, down 4.5% from 2025, and about 5,500 openings, up 4.4%. Dollar General, Aldi, and Tractor Supply lead openings. GameStop, Francesca's, and Walgreens lead closures. The closure count is the lowest in three years, but the brands closing are mid-market generalists while the brands opening are discount specialists or niche players.
What this means: The Eddie Bauer and Saks Off 5th closures will hit malls and lifestyle centers that relied on them as secondary anchors. Assess exposure to "off-price luxury" and "outdoor lifestyle" concepts that expanded aggressively in the 2018-2022 period. The repositioning window opens this quarter.
Expansion Signals
Target is opening 30 new stores this year, with five of the seven spring openings larger than the company's 125,000-square-foot average. The stores open March 15 in California, New Jersey, North Carolina, Missouri, and Texas. Target is going bigger, not smaller. Incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke listed four priorities: faster tech rollouts, better merchandising, and stronger local ties.
H-E-B purchased more than 600 acres in North Texas for supply chain facilities to support its rapid store expansion in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Kroger is doubling down on large-format Marketplace stores with new locations planned in Indiana, Texas, and West Virginia over the next two years.
PayMore, the electronics resale chain, plans 96 new locations across the U.S. and Canada in 2026. Starbucks announced plans to open 400 net-new U.S. stores by 2028 alongside a loyalty program revamp launching March 10.
Closing
~7,900
projected closures (2026)
Eddie Bauer
Outdoor apparel
200
Saks Off 5th
Winding down
~57
Francesca's
Boutique fashion
450
Expanding
~5,500
projected openings (2026)
Coresight Research: Net -2,400 stores in 2026 | Closures outpace openings for first time since 2020
H-E-B Land Buy
600 ac
DFW expansion
Eddie Bauer
200
All stores closing
Net Change
-2,400
Projected 2026
The signal: Closures create repositioning opportunities. Value grocers and regional players are acquiring the best locations. Watch where H-E-B buys land—that's where growth is heading.
Sources: Coresight Research, company announcements (January-February 2026)
What this means: The expansion money is going to grocers (H-E-B, Kroger), discount (Dollar General, Aldi), and specialty resale (PayMore). Target's large-format bet shows they still believe in the big-box model despite e-commerce pressure. Watch H-E-B's North Texas infrastructure as a leading indicator of grocery market dynamics in that region.
Border Effects
Simon Property Group CEO David Simon said border patrol activity and Canadian ire are dampening traffic at Simon malls, particularly in markets near the Canadian border. He expects tariffs to continue weighing on retailers throughout 2026 but shrugged off the impact of retailer bankruptcies on Simon's portfolio.
The U.S. and India reached a deal to lower tariffs, with reciprocal levies slashed to 18%. Shippers are adjusting to a post-de minimis world, with experts recommending SKU catalog reviews and shipping rate negotiations to control import costs.
Consumer confidence remains at a 12-year low, with the Expectations Index at 65.1 (well below the 80-point recession threshold). But spending data tells a different story. Bank of America's January data shows card spending up 1.8% year-over-year, with higher-income households at +2.4% and lower-income at +0.4%. The spending continues even as sentiment sours.
What this means: Border-adjacent retail centers face headwinds from both policy enforcement and consumer sentiment. The income split in spending data is a reminder: household income composition matters more than aggregate traffic when you're projecting tenant health.
Looking Ahead
The speed race is the story. Walmart's automation, Amazon's delivery network, Tractor Supply's final-mile strategy, Dollar General's rural push. Each announcement represents capital deployed to move product faster with fewer labor hours. The winners are betting that consumer expectations have permanently shifted, and the losers are the retailers who didn't make these investments three years ago.
Key dates ahead: Michigan Sentiment preliminary reading releases Friday February 6. January CPI data arrives February 11 (watch food and shelter categories). January retail sales data releases February 14. Target's spring stores open March 15. Starbucks loyalty revamp launches March 10.
For site selection, this week's data points to infrastructure. Which distribution centers are getting automated? Which stores are becoming delivery hubs? The physical footprint of retail is being reconfigured around speed, and the markets that serve those networks are the ones to watch. H-E-B's 600-acre North Texas purchase and Walmart's Louisiana investment aren't just logistics stories. They're signals about where retail growth will concentrate.