Costco is pressing ahead with ten new warehouse openings across the United States by the end of the year, part of a broader North American expansion that also includes four new Canadian locations.
Five of the new U.S. stores are slated to open in October, with another five following in November. The rollout spans nine states from coast to coast, Missouri, Texas, New York, Kansas, California, Idaho, Arizona, Virginia, and Wisconsin, reinforcing the retailer's bet that brick-and-mortar bulk shopping still has room to grow, even as competitors lean harder into e-commerce.
The expansion tracks with a goal CEO Ron Vachris laid out earlier this year. Vachris said the company aims to open at least 30 warehouses a year over the next five to ten years. Fourteen new North American locations in a single stretch of two months suggests Costco's leadership is serious about hitting that pace.
The five October locations cover a wide geographic spread. New warehouses will open in Lee's Summit, Missouri; The Colony, Texas; Amherst, New York; Lawrence, Kansas; and Camarillo, California, The Sun reported, citing Fox Business for the October list.
Some of these locations are relocations, existing Costco warehouses moving to new buildings in the same area, rather than brand-new market entries. The distinction matters for shoppers hoping a Costco will arrive in a city that has never had one, but the company has not publicly broken down which stores fall into which category.
The retailer has been on a steady building tear this year. Costco added seven new warehouses in August alone, a pace that underscores just how aggressively the company is investing in physical retail space while many competitors pull back.
The remaining five U.S. warehouses are set for November: South Meridian, Idaho; Vallejo, California; Chandler, Arizona; Newport News, Virginia; and Franklin, Wisconsin. California picks up a second new location in this wave, giving the state two openings in two months.
Four Canadian stores round out the push. New warehouses are planned for Northeast Edmonton and Lloydminster in Alberta, plus East Windsor and Wasaga Beach in Ontario. The Sun grouped these with the nine November openings, though the article did not explicitly confirm the month for the Canadian locations.
Combined, the fourteen openings represent a significant capital commitment. Costco has outlined plans for all fourteen warehouses as part of a strategy that prioritizes steady, methodical growth over flashy pivots.
For all the expansion, three U.S. states remain without a single Costco warehouse: Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wyoming. None of the new openings changes that. The company is not currently expected to enter states where it has no existing presence, which means residents in those three states will keep driving across state lines if they want to shop the warehouse aisles.
That decision is worth watching. Rhode Island is the smallest state by area and sits within easy driving distance of Massachusetts and Connecticut locations. West Virginia and Wyoming are more rural, lower-density markets, exactly the kind of places where a warehouse model built on volume faces tougher economics.
Costco has been making other moves to keep its membership base engaged. The company recently promoted lesser-known member perks like its water delivery service, part of an effort to squeeze more value out of the annual membership fee that drives its business model.
Not every experiment has stuck. Costco quietly shut down its members-only online marketplace without offering a public explanation, a reminder that even a company on a building spree trims what isn't working.
Thirty warehouses a year for five to ten years would mean 150 to 300 new locations. That is a massive footprint expansion for a company that already operates hundreds of warehouses across the globe. Vachris's target signals confidence that the Costco model, low margins, high volume, membership fees, still has headroom in an economy where consumers are hunting for value.
The bet makes sense on the numbers. Costco's membership renewal rates have historically hovered near 90 percent, and the company's no-frills warehouse format keeps overhead low compared to traditional grocery and department stores. Every new warehouse that hits its membership targets throws off predictable, recurring revenue before a single rotisserie chicken crosses the checkout scanner.
The expansion also comes at a time when Costco faces scrutiny on other fronts. The Department of Justice has demanded years of pricing data from the retailer as part of an expanding beef antitrust probe, a legal headache that has not slowed the company's building plans but adds a layer of regulatory risk.
In a retail landscape littered with closures, bankruptcies, and shrinking square footage, Costco is moving in the opposite direction. Whether the market rewards that confidence over the next decade depends on whether American consumers keep showing up in bulk, and so far, they have.