The sporting goods and outdoor recreation retailer plans to open 160 to 180 new stores during the next five years, company executives said on the chain’s earnings call.
Initially, the new stores will be split evenly between new and existing markets. “As we move into 2025 and beyond, our goal will be to go into new markets, with a greater density of new store openings around the same time,” Academy CEO Steve Lawrence told analysts. “The end result of all this work, is that we believe we have an opportunity to open up, even more stores than we initially modelled in our long-range plan.”
Lawrence added that it’s also important for the company to balance its openings by time of year. “We’ve learned that stores open in the first half of the year, get out of the gate faster than stores open up in Q3 and Q4,” he said. Based on this, starting in 2025, building roughly 50 per cent of the stores for each year will open up in first and second quarters, he said.
The retailer will kick off its expansion by opening 15 to 17 new stores in its current fiscal year. The expansion includes its recently opened location in Knightdale, North Carolina and an upcoming store in Greenwood, Indiana, which will host its grand opening on 12-14 April.
