What Will Happen To Your 99 Cents Only Store? The Latest List

You may not be able to get bargains for under a dollar at 99 Cents Only stores anymore. But would you settle for $1.25?

Dollar Tree has announced its successful acquisition of nearly half of the bankrupt 99 Cents Only locations, nearly two months after the California-based chain began going out of business sales.

The vast majority of the stores Dollar Tree has acquired out of bankruptcy are in 99 Cents Only’s home state of California – 130 of the 264 locations the former discount chain had in the state. Dollar Tree has also bought 20 stores in Arizona, 13 in Texas and 7 in Nevada (the full list, with locations, is below).

That’s a total of 170 stores set to transform into Dollar Tree, out of the 370 locations that are, or are soon to become, vacant after the demise of 99 Cents Only. Store closing sales technically aren’t over until tomorrow, but there’s not much left in any 99 Cents Only store that remains open.

The sale makes Dollar Tree the biggest beneficiary of the bankruptcy. “This was an attractive opportunity to secure leases in priority markets where we see strong profitable growth potential… enabling us to rapidly grow the Dollar Tree brand across the western United States, reaching even more customers and communities,” Dollar Tree Chief Operating Officer Michael Creedon said in a statement.

Curiously, Dollar Tree also purchased the intellectual property of 99 Cents Only, including its name, logo and website. When asked whether there are any plans to reopen any stores under the 99 Cents Only name, a Dollar Tree spokesperson told Coupons in the News the plan is for all of them to become Dollar Trees. So it’s not known what exactly Dollar Tree plans to do with the 99 Cents Only brand, unless the purchase was a ploy to keep the competing brand off the market, after a group of investors led by Pic ‘N’ Save Bargains CEO Mark Miller had hoped to purchase and reopen all of the Southern California locations and keep the 99 Cents Only name alive.

Dollar Tree’s announcement follows one by Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, which said late last week it had acquired 11 of the 99 Cents Only locations in Texas. “Texas is a great market for us that has tremendous growth potential,” Ollie’s CEO John Swygert said in a statement. The acquired stores “have been serving value-oriented customers for many years” as 99 Cents Only, and now Ollie’s is “focused on getting these stores up and running as quickly as possible.”

ALDI, meanwhile, has picked up a few locations in Arizona and Nevada, and Grocery Outlet has grabbed a couple in Las Vegas. Several dozen other former 99 Cents Only locations have been purchased so far, but most in onesie-twosie transactions, and most to property owners whose plans for the sites are not clear. All told, right now, 243 out of 370 of the former 99 Cents Only locations are spoken for, and 127 remain available for sale with no confirmed takers yet.

So with one standout buyer, 99 Cents Only’s loss seems to be Dollar Tree’s gain. Dollar Tree, which also owns Family Dollar, has seen its namesake brand thrive, while Family Dollar has struggled. Back in March, the company announced it would be closing nearly 1,000 Family Dollar stores – a third of them imminently, and the rest over the next several years. “By eliminating a bunch of underperforming stores… we can now focus on the stores that are doing better,” CEO Rick Dreiling said at the time.

What follows is a list of the 99 Cents Only store locations due to become Dollar Tree locations by the fall of this year, as well as the store locations sold to Ollie’s, ALDI and Grocery Outlet. If your local store is not on the list – stay tuned to find out its ultimate fate.

SOLD TO DOLLAR TREE:

SOLD TO OLLIE’S BARGAIN OUTLET:

SOLD TO ALDI:

SOLD TO GROCERY OUTLET:

Image sources: 99 Cents Only Stores/Facebook / Dollar Tree