A New Wisconsin Costco Location Will Be Opening Very Soon

Few store openings get people as fired up as a new Costco. The giant carts, the free samples, the hot dog special, the rotisserie chicken that somehow ends up in every cart: it's a shopping trip and a weekend outing rolled into one.

The membership warehouse chain is in the middle of a serious building spree. Costco closed its fiscal year operating 939 warehouses worldwide, including 647 in the United States and Puerto Rico.

During last month's earnings call, company leaders said they plan to open 33 more warehouses in the coming fiscal year as they work toward a goal of 30 net new stores every year.

Several of those are coming by the end of 2026, and one of them is in Franklin, Wisconsin, and we now have a much better idea of when it will be open for business, and it's good news for the holiday shopping season.

From Proposal To A Grand Opening In About a Year

The project moved quickly once it got rolling. Franklin's planning commission unanimously approved the proposal last year, and the Common Council signed off on November 4. Crews broke ground this past May.

Get our free mobile app

The new warehouse sits at 2710 W. Drexel Ave., at the northwest corner of Drexel Avenue and 27th Street, and it will be the company's first store in Milwaukee County.

Franklin now appears on Costco's list of upcoming locations with a November 2026 opening. The exact date hasn't been officially announced, but it's very exciting that it will be next month.

What Will Be Included In Franklin's New Costco?

This isn't a small footprint. The 164,000-square-foot warehouse sits on land that once served as Northwestern Mutual's Franklin campus, and Costco bought the 20.5-acre site for $4.6 million just before construction started.

City documents showed the original plans were already larger than Costco's national average, in line with the company's newer stores.

SEE NOW: 30 Sensational Wisconsin Colleges Make The U.S. News’ 2027 Best List

Along with the warehouse, the site will include tire sales, a 12-pump gas station, and 868 parking spaces, which, if you've ever circled a Costco lot on a Saturday, you know will come in handy.

The store is also expected to bring more than 100 full-time and part-time jobs to the area.

Wisconsin's Costco Count Keeps Growing

Costco currently has 12 full-service locations in Wisconsin. Six of them are in the southeast part of the state: Grafton, Menomonee Falls, New Berlin, Oconomowoc, Pewaukee, and Pleasant Prairie.

The Oconomowoc store just opened in August, so Franklin will make it two new southeast Wisconsin warehouses in the span of a few months.