Palmer Goodwill set to close this month

Date: 8/17/2022

PALMER – The Goodwill store located at 1581 North Main St. will close on Aug. 20.

According to James Harder, director of communications and public affairs for Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries, the lease for the store has ended and will not be renewed.

“We evaluate store sites at the end of every lease, and the lease for the Palmer store has ended and, unfortunately, we were not able to extend it,” said Harder.

All Palmer Goodwill employees have been offered positions at other Goodwill stores in the area, according to Harder.

“As far as I know, they’ve all been placed in other positions,” he said.

Harder encouraged customers to visit any of Goodwill’s other locations in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst, Northampton or Chicopee.

“We are encouraging our Palmer customers to go to one of our three other locations in the Pioneer Valley including our newly renovated Amherst store. We did renovate that store last August and September and had a grand reopening in early October. It’s been very, very successful,” said Harder.

Goodwill is also looking for opportunities to open new stores that will be larger and more efficient.

“We definitely are hoping to open more locations in the area. Last month we also opened a new Pioneer Valley Job Training and Operations Center. That was a big investment in the Pioneer Valley for us and it will also kind of serve as the hub for our retail operations in the area. I think having that open is good and that means we will hopefully be able to find new locations in the Springfield area and we’ll be able to open something, we hope, soon,” said Harder.

He does not know if Palmer specifically will see another store but is hopeful that the Springfield area will.

“I do know that in the Springfield area we’re looking diligently for other sites,” he said.

Goodwill in Amherst is located at 183 University Dr. Goodwill in Northampton is located at 971 Bridge Rd. Goodwill in Chicopee is located at 1604 Memorial Dr.