The Gap store at 1931 Wilshire Blvd. will close for good on Thursday, July 23, ending more than five decades at the corner of Wilshire and 20th Street.

A Gap spokesperson told the California Post in early July that the company has been "proud to be part of the community in Santa Monica for more than 50 years" but that its lease is expiring and the location will close permanently. The company said it is helping employees explore positions at nearby Gap stores.

The Wilshire Boulevard location is Southern California's first Gap store, according to the Santa Monica Mirror, opening in the mid-1970s several years after Don and Doris Fisher launched the brand in San Francisco in 1969. Over its run, the store became a neighborhood fixture with an outsized history. A self-described former employee recalled on Reddit that Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn shopped there for jeans in the 1980s. The building also served as a filming location for a Weird Al Yankovic music video and, during the January 2025 wildfires, doubled as an emergency supply hub for first responders.

On Reddit's r/SantaMonica forum, residents mourned the loss. One called it "the last convenient clothing store in Santa Monica." Another wrote: "I remember my mom taking me there when I was a toddler, and I bought some of my son's first clothes there when my wife was still pregnant."

The property won't sit empty long. Developer Cypress Equity Investments plans to demolish the building and construct an eight-story mixed-use complex with 260 apartments, 26 of them designated affordable, above roughly 21,500 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, according to the California Post.

The closure fits a broader pattern. Downtown Santa Monica's retail and restaurant vacancy rate sits at roughly 20%, among the highest in Los Angeles County, according to CoStar data cited in a July 2026 community update. Nearly three in 10 storefronts on the Third Street Promenade are empty, and retailers including Old Navy, H&M, and AMC have already left the area. Gap Inc. closed a net 35 stores during fiscal year 2025 as part of a companywide fleet reduction.

Still, some signs point toward recovery. Foot traffic at the Santa Monica Pier is nearing pre-pandemic levels of 12 to 14 million visitors annually, and the police department is projected to be fully staffed for the first time in two decades, according to city data cited in the same community update.