Morristown's Walmart Neighborhood Market closing in May, 77 jobs will be cut - Knoxville News Sentinel

Jim Gaines Knoxville News Sentinel

Published 7:00 AM EDT Mar 28, 2019

Walmart is closing a Neighborhood Market location in Morristown, cutting 77 jobs.

The store at 1757 W. Andrew Johnson Highway will permanently close May 24, according to a required notice filed with the state for layoffs.

“As you can imagine, the decision to close a store is very complex and it’s based on several factors, including financial performance of that store,” said Anne Hatfield, Walmart’s state and local communications director for the central U.S. “It’s in no way a reflection of the incredible team who run that store.”

The company hopes all 77 employees will want to transfer to other Walmart locations, she said via email. All of those workers will be paid through May 24 unless they’ve already transferred, Hatfield said.

There is another Neighborhood Market and two Supercenters in Morristown, all within about three miles of the Andrew Johnson Highway location, according to Walmart’s Store Finder.

Proximity to other Walmarts was among the reasons given for closure of the Walmart Supercenter at University Commons in Knoxville, which the company announced last month. That store will close Friday, March 29, at 7 p.m., Hatfield said.

The University Commons store, near the University of Tennessee’s campus, opened in 2014. It employed 160 people, who also had the potential to transfer to Walmarts elsewhere.

Walmart doesn’t currently plan to close any more Tennessee stores, Hatfield said. Instead, the company plans to invest further in remodeling and new technology, she said.

Walmart seeks new items to sell

This week Walmart starts accepting applications to its sixth annual Open Call summit, for small businesses and entrepreneurs which want to sell their products through Walmart.

Last year the company heard nearly 600 product pitches from potential suppliers across the country, and accepted dozens for sale, according to a Walmart news release.

Among them were two Knoxville firms: The Cumberland Companies, which makes a fog-free shaving mirror; and Mighty Good Solutions, which makes Pizza Saver, a semicircular container designed to keep leftover slices fresh.

“Walmart’s Open Call program had an amazingly positive impact for us,” Ben Rendo of Mighty Good Solutions said in the news release. “With Walmart’s help, we turned our small business from something that my wife and I were running out of our living room into a real company. Within a year, our first item was in 4,600 locations. Open Call truly opened the door for growth that would have been very difficult to replicate anywhere else.”

Open Call applications will be taken until April 30, and the summit itself will be June 18 to 19 at Walmart corporate offices in Bentonville, Arkansas. To apply for an in-person pitch meeting with a Walmart buyer, go to Walmart-jump.com.

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