Ace Hardware store operator files Chapter 11 bankruptcy. By Kirk O'Neil TheStreet Updated August 12, 2026 8:22 PM Gift Article Home improvement and hardware store chains have battled lower sales in the last year as a sluggish housing market and consumers' reluctance to spend on renovation projects in uncertain times affects their business. Smaller hardware chains also face fierce competition from big-box stores, like Home Depot and Lowe's. Other challenges, such as litigation, can affect a retailer's business as well. Woodcrest Ace Hardware, which operates two Southern California Ace Hardware stores, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after facing an alleged and disputed product liability and negligence lawsuit regarding Roundup herbicide, according to the debtor's petition. The petition did not list any other details regarding the product liability and negligence lawsuit. Hardware store operator files bankruptcy. The debtor, which a part of Ace Hardware's retailer-owned hardware cooperative, did not cite increased competition, financial distress or any other specific reason for filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in its petition. The Riverside, Calif.-based debtor filed its petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California on Aug. 11, listing $1 million to $10 million in assets and debts. Woodcrest Ace Hardware operates a store at 18845 Van Buren Blvd., Suite B5, in Riverside, Calif., and Wildomar Ace Hardware at 23881 Clinton Keith Road, in Wildomar, Calif., according to its petition. The debtor also owns a uniform retailer P&P Uniforms in Riverside. Debtor will assume its leases. Leases for all three businesses were listed on the debtor's petition, with Woodcrest Ace Hardware planning to assume the lease contracts. The stores continue to operate as normal. Woodcrest Ace Hardware's largest unsecured creditors include the Ace Hardware Corporation, owed over $620,000; CFT NV Developments, owed over $176,000; CVS Longs Drugs, owed over $121,000; 5.11, owed over $36,000; and American Express, owed over $20,000. The debtor's Woodcrest Ace Hardware location faces competition from a nearby Home Depot store, located about 5 miles away at 3323 Madison in Riverside. The closest Home Depot to the Wildomar Ace Hardware is about 3.8 miles away at 27738 Clinton Keith Road in Murrieta, Calif. The company's CEO Paul D. Shanabarger was not immediately available for comment. Woodcrest's second bankruptcy filing. This is Woodcrest Ace Hardware's second trip to bankruptcy court, as it previously filed for Chapter 11 protection on April 12, 2019. The first case was closed with the approval of a final decree on Sept. 14, 2020, according to Inforuptcy. Home Depot dominates the home improvement sector, capturing 28% of the market share in 2025, with Lowe's owning 17% of the market and Amazon generating 11% of the sector's sales, according to the Numerator Home Improvement Tracker. Ace Hardware holds 2% of market share. Ace Hardware captured about 2% of the market share in 2025, according to the tracker. Home Depot's Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail discussed problems with the housing market, which have led to home improvement store economic issues, during a February 2026 earnings call. "The housing turnover has remained at historic lows since 2023, which has significantly reduced demand for projects and other purchases associated with buying and selling a home," McPhail said in the company's quarterly earnings call, according to MarketBeat. The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc. This story was originally published August 12, 2026 at 7:55 PM.

Ace Hardware reported second quarter 2026 revenues of $3.0 billion, an increase of 5.9% from the same period in 2025. Net income rose 31% to $155.6 million, marking the highest quarterly revenue and earnings in the company's history. The company added 34 new domestic stores during the quarter, bringing its total domestic store count to 5,283, an increase of 88 stores year-over-year. Same-store sales increased 1.1% in the US, driven by a 3.1% rise in average ticket, partially offset by a 1.9% decline in transactions. Wholesale revenues reached $2.7 billion, up 6.3% from the prior year, with grilling, outdoor power equipment, paint sundries, and impulse products showing the largest gains. Retail revenues from Ace Retail Group totalled $280.7 million, a 2.1% increase.

Morgan Stanley buys Ace Hardware's 1.5M-SF Kansas City distribution hub for $158.5M. Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing acquired a newly built, 1.5 million-square-foot distribution facility leased to Ace Hardware in Kansas City for $158.5 million, in an off-market deal with developer Hunt Midwest. Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing has acquired a newly built, 1.5 million-square-foot distribution facility leased to Ace Hardware in Kansas City, Missouri, for $158.5 million, the firm announced Aug. 11. Funds managed by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing (MSREI) bought the property from developer Hunt Midwest, according to the announcement, distributed via Business Wire. At roughly $106 per square foot, the facility is described as the largest distribution center in the Kansas City area by building footprint - a cross-dock structure stretching roughly half a mile end to end. "This acquisition reflects our conviction in high-quality net lease investments combining strong tenant credit and institutional-quality real estate," said David Gross, a managing director at MSREI. Inside the deal. The facility sits within KCI 29 Logistics Park, the first phase of a roughly 3,300-acre megasite that developers plan to build out to as much as 20 million square feet over time. Hunt Midwest developed the building as a build-to-suit in 2025, delivering a Class A structure with 40-foot clear heights and substantial power capacity. Ace Hardware, which the release describes as the world's largest hardware cooperative with more than 5,300 locally owned stores across more than 60 countries, occupies the property under a long-term net lease and has invested heavily in automation and warehouse technology inside. The transaction was negotiated off-market, with Mark Long and John Hassler of Newmark Zimmer facilitating the deal. KCI 29 Logistics Park sits near Kansas City International Airport, a location developers have marketed for its highway access and its position within a day's drive of a large share of the U.S. population - a common selling point for e-commerce and distribution tenants weighing Midwest sites. Ace Hardware's cooperative structure, in which member-owned retail stores collectively own the parent organization, has made the company a sought-after net-lease tenant for institutional investors seeking stable, long-duration income backed by a large, diversified store base rather than a single corporate balance sheet. Part of a larger industrial buying push. MSREI manages roughly $58 billion in gross real estate assets globally across 17 offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia, according to the firm, while its parent Morgan Stanley Investment Management oversees about $2 trillion in assets under management and supervision as of June 30. The Ace Hardware purchase adds to a broader wave of institutional capital chasing large, single-tenant logistics assets with investment-grade or cooperative-backed tenants, a category that has drawn steady demand even as broader industrial leasing has cooled from its pandemic-era peak. What it means. The deal terms - buyer, seller, price, square footage and broker - come directly from Morgan Stanley's own release, giving a clear picture of one of the largest single-asset industrial trades in the Kansas City market this year. The scale of KCI 29 Logistics Park's planned buildout suggests more large single-tenant deals could follow in the submarket as additional phases come online. For Hunt Midwest, the sale caps a build-to-suit cycle that began with securing Ace Hardware as an anchor tenant and ended with a full exit roughly a year after the facility's 2025 delivery - a timeline that underscores how quickly institutional capital has moved to absorb newly built, credit-backed logistics product even as some other corners of the industrial market have softened.