Macy’s in downtown Sacramento, once an anchor store, officially set to close after 62 years

Macy’s announced Thursday the long-rumored closures of its locations in Citrus Heights and downtown Sacramento. The latter has been part of the city’s core for more than six decades.

The department store chain announced that 66 stores across the U.S. have recently closed or will close this year, a majority in the first quarter of 2025. The list includes the Macy’s in DoCo and at the Sunrise Mall.

Shutting down storefronts comes amid a three-year plan to pack up business at about 150 “unproductive” stores, Macy’s said.

Rumors spread last year that the decades-old store would soon leave downtown Sacramento after Barry Broome, president of the greater Sacramento Economic Council, mentioned it during a City Council meeting. A company spokesperson last month said Macy’s planned to close roughly 65 locations “after the holidays.” The closures had not been confirmed until Thursday’s announcement.

Residents can still shop for Macy’s department store deals at Arden Fair mall or the Westfield Galleria in Roseville. The retailer also opened a scaled-down, smaller-format store at the Laguna Crossroads in Elk Grove.

With its impending departure, Macy’s will close a chapter on a significant part of the capital city’s history. The store opened in 1963 and went on to anchor what would be known as the Downtown Plaza.

Business waned at the shopping center over the ensuing decades, and by the 2010s, the stores surrounding Macy’s amounted to a dead mall. When Golden 1 Center opened as the Kings’ new home arena in 2016, the old plaza was revived and reborn as the now-vibrant Downtown Commons.

Macy’s is the last remaining store in DoCo from that era.

Flashback to 1963: ‘People are literally pouring in’

Horse-drawn stage coaches weaved through downtown Sacramento from the state Capitol to mark an occasion dazzling all regional residents.

It was Nov. 4, 1963, and then-Gov. Edmund Brown led the grand procession to the opening of a flagship store anchoring what was then called the K Street Mall: Macy’s.

Spectators numbered nearly 20,000 that rainy day to visit the largest Macy’s in California and the first major department store to be constructed in California in more than a decade, according to newspapers. Even famed “Peanuts” cartoonist Charles M. Schulz attended as an opening day attraction.

“People are literally pouring in,” said Earl Woolley, then the president of Macy’s California.

“We thought the crowd would slacken after the noon rush for the opening,” he continued in his remarks to the Sacramento Union newspaper, “but they kept coming.”

This story was originally published January 9, 2025 at 5:46 PM.