LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — GameStop, the nationwide video game retailer, plans to permanently close its Shepherdsville, Ky. distribution center, a move that will likely put hundreds of workers out of a job.
The warehouse at 972 Conestoga Parkway will close by June 30, but the job losses will begin March 18, according to a letter to employees dated Jan. 17, a copy of which was obtained by WDRB News.
“The entire facility will be closed and all employees at the facility will be impacted,” the letter says.
GameStop’s corporate office in Grapevine, Texas did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
The closure is also confirmed by a commercial real estate listing that advertises the building’s availability for a new occupant as of July 1.
The facility packs and ships physical games ordered on the retailer’s website and repairs equipment like game controllers, WDRB reported in 2016. At the time, GameStop tripled its Louisville-area distribution space by moving to the Shepherdsville site from its previous warehouse in Commerce Crossings in Jefferson County.
It wasn’t clear how many employees work at the distribution center, but the company said it intended to employ 400 there when GameStop first occupied the Shepherdsville building. At the time, the company disclosed it had signed a 7-year lease for the warehouse.
The average hourly wage at the facility was $17.18 in 2019, according to reporting required for state economic development incentives. Kentucky promised GameStop up to $2.5 million in incentives over 15 years starting in 2017. GameStop will forfeit the vast majority of that award by closing the warehouse.
Once on the verge of bankruptcy, GameStop was at the center of the “meme stock” craze of 2021. Retail investors bid up the price of GameStop shares from less than $5 to over $81 within a few weeks in January 2021.
The move led to massive losses for short sellers who had bet on GameStop’s stock declining.
GameStop’s shares have since come back to earth, but still trade at a substantial premium — about $19 as of Thursday — to the retailer’s pre-2021 price.
Ecommerce remains a key plank of GameStop’s business, despite consumers increasingly downloading their games directly to their consolers instead of buying physical software from retailers like GameStop, according to company filings.
But Shepherdsville is only one a few main distribution centers. In 2021, GameStop established a slightly larger warehouse in York, Pennsylvania. Later that year, the company announced a West Coast distribution hub in Reno, Nevada, which was scheduled to open in 2022.
