Another One Gone: National Chain Closes a Store in Philadelphia, PA

A national pharmacy chain has closed another store in the City of Philadelphia.

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In fact, it's the seventh store in the area from this company to shut down within the past year or so.

According to a report in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Rite Aid at 23rd and Walnut in Center City closed for good just as the calendar changed from July to August.

Rite Aid, facing financial losses and a declining stock price, has shuttered seven stores in Philadelphia in the last year, most of them in Center City, in an industrywide consolidation.

Officials for the union representing store workers say expiring leases and crime also seem to be factors in Philadelphia.

Store closures are nothing new

This past spring, Forbes reported that Rite Aid planned to close 145 unprofitable stores across the country within the coming months as they struggled to compete with CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart.

Rite Aid operates about 2,400 stores in 17 states. In comparison, both CVS and Walgreens each have 9,000 stores. Meanwhile, 90-percent of the American population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart store. They have over 4,800 stores, many with a pharmacy inside.

Big Walgreens store in Philadelphia closed earlier this year

Having to find a new pharmacy in Philadelphia is nothing new for people that live in the city. In February, the three-story flagship Walgreens store at Broad and Chestnut, adjacent to City Hall, closed for good.

One of the factors that went into the decision to close that store was a noticeable drop in foot traffic in Center City. Thanks to the pandemic, scores of people that used to work in the city now do so from home.

Not just pharmacies

Even the most popular stores continue to reevaluate their operations and that includes Wawa, which closed a handful of stores within the city over the past several months.