Lexington was home to the only remaining Disney store in Kentucky. Now it’s closing

The last Disney retail store in Kentucky is shuttering its doors in the next few weeks.

The Disney store in Lexington’s Fayette Mall will be closed by June 16, according to Disney, which encouraged its fans to shop online after the closure. The store appears to be one of dozens being closed by Disney this year. A few waves of closures kicked off in March with reports of at least 38 stores closing around the country.

That continued in April with additional closures, and even more stores have announced plans to close in recent days.

When Disney first announced its plans to close at least 60 stores in North America, it cited a focus on e-commerce as the reason.

The COVID pandemic drove shoppers online as stores and malls temporarily closed. Some consumers haven’t returned to reopened stores and malls, causing additional financial strain. Fayette Mall’s owners have filed for bankruptcy.

“While consumer behavior has shifted toward online shopping, the global pandemic has changed what consumers expect from a retailer,” Stephanie Young, president of Consumer Products Games and Publishing at Disney, said in a statement from March.

“Over the past few years, we’ve been focused on meeting consumers where they are already spending their time, such as the expansion of Disney store shop-in-shops around the world.” Those “shops” offer an expanded amount of Disney products in other retailers like Target.

“We now plan to create a more flexible, interconnected ecommerce experience that gives consumers easy access to unique, high-quality products across all our franchises,” Young said.

The Disney store had been in Fayette Mall since 1993, according to Sarah Robinson, a spokesperson for Fayette Mall.

“Our leasing team is working diligently to bring new and exciting store concepts and unique experiences to Fayette Mall,” Robinson said when asked about the upcoming store vacancy.

Another Disney store was previously housed in Lousiville’s Oxmoor Center, but it reportedly closed in September last year.

Fayette Mall recently lost another popular tenant: Apple. The Apple Store inside the Lexington mall moved right down the road and set up shop in the Summit at Fritz Farm. A spokesperson for the Summit confirmed there weren’t any plans for the Disney store to make the same move.

Fayette Mall’s loss is The Summit’s gain: Popular tenant making a move.