It’s a rare occasion whenever Costco Wholesale closes one of its warehouse stores. That usually happens as part of an expansion.
In the case of a Vallejo, Calif., location, the community will get a much larger store that’s easier to find in exchange for closing an iconic Costco.
The new location is good news for the community as the original store was not the easiest Costco to get to as it wasn’t located on a main thoroughfare. Customers needed to navigate around shopping centers, big box stores and side streets to get to the store, as this writer experienced.
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Costco closes store after 37 years
Costco Wholesale closed its 125,000 square-foot store in Vallejo on Nov. 6, 2026, after operating for 37 years at 198 Plaza Drive.
The warehouse retailer, however, opened a brand new 152,000 square-foot replacement store about a 3-minute drive down the road at 860 Admiral Callaghan Lane in Vallejo on the same day it closed the city’s original store, which had been open since 1989.
The new store was hiconicighly anticipated by the Vallejo community as a line formed around the store on Wednesday night, Nov. 4, two days before the opening, with members camping out to purchase special liquors as if it was Black Friday, SFGate reported.
8,000 people expected to visit new store
The store’s manager Ernesto Vierra said he expected 8,000 people to visit the store on its first day, and the long lines on the first day suggested that number could be possible.
“I already knew it was going to be big, because two days ago we already had a line on the sidewalk, so I knew we were going to be busy,” Vierra told the Vacaville Reporter. “At 4 a.m., the line was already building. But it’s exciting. I’m happy to be here in the new facility for the community.
“This one is bigger, has more gas pumps, more parts, and it’s a shinier location,” he said.
The new Costco location has almost twice as many gas pumps as the old store with 30 pumps compared to 16 at the gas station, according to the executive summary of the draft environmental impact report.
The new store includes a tire service center, pharmacy, optical department, hearing aid center, food court, and electronics and appliance departments.
Costco opening 14 locations
Despite closing the lone Vallejo store, Costco has not been closing other locations and has instead been expanding its footprint.
In October, Costco opened five locations in Lee Summit, Mo.; The Colony, Texas; Amherst, N.Y.; Lawrence, Kan.; and Camarillo, Calif., according to its new locations page on its website.
Costco also scheduled nine store openings in North America in November, including Vallejo; South Meridian, Idaho; Chandler, Ariz., Business Center; Northeast Alberta, Alberta, Canada; Lloydminster, Alberta, Canada; East Windsor, Ontario, Canada; Wasaga Beach, Ontario, Canada; Newport News, Va.; and Franklin, Wis.
Safeway reached a settlement
Costco had a long road to travel before it could open its new store. Safeway, which operated a store near the Costco property, filed a lawsuit against the City of Vallejo and the Costco project after the city approved the final environmental impact report in June 2020, claiming the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act.
A Solano County Superior Court dismissed the lawsuit, and Safeway reached a settlement with the city and the Costco developer Vallejo-Fairview Developers LLC in September 2022 that called for Safeway to dismiss its appeal of the court ruling in exchange for the developer paying Safeway’s legal fees up to $250,000 and the city restriping a lane in a nearby road to satisfy Safeway’s concerns.
Costco began construction on its new Vallejo warehouse store in the Fairview Plaza shopping center in June 2024. Other tenants at the shopping center will include Raising Cane’s, Wells Fargo Bank, and NorthBay Healthcare.
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