Target locks in eight fall openings across six states, capping a 32-store year

Target will open eight new stores across six states this fall, closing out a year in which the retailer will have added 32 locations, Chain Store Age reported Monday. Seven of the stores open on a single day — October 11 — in Tupelo, Miss. (1130 Woodford Way), Bridgehampton, N.Y. (2102 Montauk Highway), Cookeville, Tenn. (1100 S. Willow Avenue), Norfolk, Va. (201 E. Little Creek Road), and three Texas locations in Fort Worth's Chisholm Trail corridor, Katy and Liberty Hill. The eighth, at 2600 Elida Road in Lima, Ohio, follows on November 8. Together the openings will create more than 2,000 jobs, according to Fox Business, at starting wages of $15 to $24 an hour.

The fall class caps the busiest stretch of new-store activity Target has mounted in years. The retailer, which operates nearly 2,000 stores across all 50 states, opened 24 locations earlier in 2026 and has committed $5 billion in capital investment this year across new stores, remodels and supply chain. The push comes as Target works to reignite traffic and sales momentum, leaning on its stores as both fulfillment hubs and brand statements — including a new in-store Beauty Studio concept rolling out to more than 600 locations this month.

The most striking detail in the fall lineup is the size of the buildings. Seven of the eight stores exceed Target's chain average of roughly 125,000 square feet, per Chain Store Age, and four — Tupelo, Fort Worth, Katy and Liberty Hill — clock in at 148,000 square feet, the company's largest full-line format. After a decade in which Target's growth headlines were dominated by small-format urban and college-town stores, the 2026 class signals a decisive return to ground-up, full-size boxes in growth corridors. The one exception proves the rule: Bridgehampton, at 90,000 square feet, is a tailored build for a land-constrained Hamptons trade area.

The market selection is just as telling. Tupelo, Cookeville and Lima are classic regional trade-area plays — county-seat retail hubs that pull shoppers from a wide rural radius. The Tupelo store will be the largest Target in Mississippi and just the state's sixth location overall, according to WTVA, which reports city leaders expect it to catalyze further retail development and have paired the project with a new city-funded connector road off North Gloster Street. Texas, meanwhile, lands three of the eight stores, all in fast-growing suburban corridors around Fort Worth, Houston and Austin.

Target has said it plans to open more than 300 stores by 2035, a pace of roughly 30 per year that 2026's 32 openings slightly exceed. Alongside the new builds, the company is remodeling more than 130 existing stores this year. "Our continued commitment to opening new stores is really about showing up for our guests and our communities," chief stores officer Adrienne Costanzo said, per Fox Business, adding that the new buildings let teams "bring our merchandising strengths to life, create easier and more inspiring shopping experiences."

Target is one of the few national retailers still commissioning 148,000-square-foot ground-up anchors, and that makes it a bellwether for power-center and pad-ready land development in growth markets — where Target goes, co-tenancy demand follows. The single-day October 11 opening blitz also suggests a maturing development pipeline: sites explored in 2023, permitted in 2024 and delivered in 2026, a timeline landlords courting Target should internalize. The Tupelo playbook — municipal road infrastructure paired with a state's largest store — is a reminder that public-private site work still moves big-box deals. And the Bridgehampton build shows Target will flex the box down for high-value, supply-constrained trade areas, an opening for infill landlords holding 90,000-square-foot opportunities.