Home improvement chain closings outweighed openings in June

In its monthly list of home center openings and closings, Chain Store Guide showed 25 new home channel chain stores opened in the United States, while 116 closed in June. Home center stores include major big-box chains such as Home Depot, Lowe’s and Menards.

That’s a shift from May, when 42 new home channel chain stores opened in the United States and 26 closed.

In June, the Midwest showed the highest percentage both of home channel stores that were opened (28 percent of the total) and stores that were closed (30 percent).

Stores under the header of “category killers” did not fare as well -- while 281 new stores opened nationwide, 989 stores closed. Discount stores showed more strength, with 15 total openings nationwide and no closings.

Chain Store Guide is a subsidiary of Lebhar-Friedman, publisher of Home Channel News.