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Two Former Walmart Express Stores to Reopen As Harps

2 min read

Harps Food Stores Inc. of Springdale announced Thursday that two of the Arkansas Walmart Express locations it acquired earlier this month will reopen as Harps stores over the next 11 weeks.

The location in Gravette (Benton County) will open Aug. 3 and the store in Cedarville (Crawford County) will open Sept. 7. The company also announced Harps stores would open in former Walmart Express buildings in Seligman and Anderson, Missouri.

All four Harps will open with fuel stations but without pharmacies, according to a news release from the company.

Harps did not announce plans for the former Express locations in Charleston (Franklin County) or Mansfield (Scott and Sebastian counties). But it said it will sell the Express stores in Gentry (Benton County), where it was already converting a Marvin’s Food Store into a Harps; Prairie Grove (Washington County), which already has a Harps; and Noel, Missouri, where it is remodeling an existing store.

Wal-Mart closed 10 of its experimental, small-footprint Express stores in Arkansas in January, part of wider review of operations that shuttered 154 stores across the country. The Express stores range from 12,000-14,000 SF, which is smaller than most Harps grocery stores, which are about 32,000-SF.

The closings left some Arkansas communities without a grocery store and presented a buying opportunity for Harps and others. On June 8, Harps said it would buy nine former Walmart Express stores in Arkansas and Missouri. It did not disclose a purchase price.

“As part of the purchase, we are also acquiring the equipment in the stores,” Harps said in Thursday’s news release. “Some of the equipment at closed stores will be utilized at other facilities. In addition, we recognized that the larger portfolio we were willing to acquire the more attractive our proposal.”

The 23,000-SF Harps store in Gentry, at the corner of Highway 59 and Highway 12, is a $3 million project and will open Sept. 21. It will include a bakery and deli, produce and meat departments. It will not include a fuel station.

According to the news release, about 170 employees are needed to staff the five new stores. 

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