Next bad news

H&M store on Graz’s main square to close in 2025

The H&M store on the main square in Graz will close this year.(Bild: Christoph Hartner)

It's a hard blow for Graz city center: the fashion company H&M is closing its store on Hauptplatz this year. The prominent location thus joins a growing list of vacancies. Tens of employees are affected.

Graz city center is experiencing challenging times: Café Sacher recently announced its departure from the city center, but retail chains such as Salamander, Stiefelkönig and Zara have also had to close. Now the "Krone" has received the next piece of bad news: Swedish fashion brand H&M is closing its store on Graz's main square.

"We can confirm that the H&M store will close later this year," it says. No further background or reasons are given for the time being. In any case, it must have been economically difficult to run two such large stores in close proximity in Graz (Hauptplatz and Eisernes Tor). The Swedish fashion chain has a global turnover of 17.6 billion euros and 143,000 employees, but things have not been going well in the recent past.

This store on the main square will close its doors in 2025.(Bild: Christoph Hartner)

According to the latest survey by the consulting firm Standort + Markt, only 3.2 percent of buildings in Graz city center were vacant last year, but this affects many prominent business premises, giving passers-by an increasingly bleak picture in Herrengasse and beyond. A study by the Styrian Chamber of Commerce also calculates that there are now ten percent fewer retail businesses in the district of Graz-Stadt than ten years ago. It was only on Thursday that the WKO called for a protest for this reason.

And what does the closure mean for the store's employees? "Our employees have top priority at H&M. Our colleagues in our store on Hauptplatz will be offered options and opportunities for continued employment at H&M," the fashion giant said via email on Thursday afternoon.