Macy’s announced it is closing its longest-operating store in San Diego County, its anchor department store in La Mesa’s Grossmont Center.

The closure is one of two planned for California and 14 planned across the country in 2026, as part of a continued restructuring that the company, founded in 1858, has dubbed its Bold New Chapter.

Its closure here lines up with the Grossmont Center mall’s redevelopment and Macy’s strategy of cutting back its brick-and-mortar footprint and focusing on elevated experiences at fewer stores.

After this closure, Macy’s will still have stores in San Diego County at Fashion Valley, Westfield UTC, Plaza Bonita, Chula Vista Center, Santee Trolley Square, The Shoppes at Carlsbad and Mershops North County (formerly North County Mall).

The La Mesa location is the longest operating Macy’s store in San Diego County, open since in 1961, when the Grossmont Center mall itself opened. Chula Vista’s opened a year later, followed by Fashion Valley’s in 1969. The Santee location will be the nearest remaining Macy’s to La Mesa. It is the county’s only small format store, and it opened in 2023.

Macy’s has been closing stores in spates for several years. In early 2025, it announced it was closing 66 locations, including two in San Diego County: Otay Ranch Town Center and the Mission Valley Home store. In 2024, it had announced it would be closing around 150 stores nationwide, based on performance.

Along with trimming its footprint, the company is focusing on 125 “Reimagine” stores. Overall, the company plans to “simplify how we operate (and) invest in the experiences that matter most to our customers,” Tony Spring, its CEO, wrote in a memo last week.

It is also focusing on luxury and updating its supply chain, “including the opening of our most advanced fulfillment facility, improving speed, reliability, and flexibility in how we serve customers,” Spring said. Macy’s owns the Bloomingdale’s brand and luxury cosmetics chain Bluemercury.

Same store sales at Macy’s stores were up year over year by 2.5% in the third quarter, and Bloomingdale’s performed even better, with comparable sales up 8.8%.

“Our third quarter sales were the strongest in 13 quarters, reflecting the acceleration of our Bold New Chapter strategy and demonstrating that the meaningful enterprise-wide changes we’ve made are resonating with customers,” Spring said.

For Grossmont Center, the closure announcement syncs up with the mall’s redevelopment. In 2021, Maryland-based Federal Realty Investment Trust acquired a 60% stake in the 925,000-square-foot regional shopping center. The transaction valued the entire property at $175.8 million.

The store is expected to close within the next few months.

On Yelp, the Grossmont location had a mix of stellar and very poor reviews. “Literal grinch on Christmas,” one reviewer complained about a salesperson. But another recent shopper said customer service there was a cut above the rest: “Kudos to these employees for making this store stand out with all the other nearby Macy’s stores.”

In February 2019, there were 595 Macy’s stores in the U.S. In November 2025, there were 476.

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Staff rriter Jennifer Van Grove contributed to this report.

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