Walgreens Closing 1,200 Stores, Potentially Impacting Hudson Valley

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — More than 1,200 Walgreens stores will close over the next three years as the struggling drug store chain attempts to complete a successful financial turnaround. The company announced last week that about 500 of the closures will occur in the current fiscal year, which began in September.

Walgreens did not reveal which locations will be shuttered. The chain has about 8,500 stores in the United States and dozens of them are in the Hudson Valley.

The closures were announced as the Deerfield, Illinois-based company reported a fourth-quarter loss of $3 billion. Still, Walgreens officials remained optimistic about the chain's long-term survival prospects.

"This turnaround will take time, but we are confident it will yield significant financial and consumer benefits over the long term," Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth said in a statement.

Walgreens announced in June that a significant number of stores would be closing. At the time, Wentworth said, "We continue to face a difficult operating environment, including persistent pressures on the U.S. consumer and the impact of recent marketplace dynamics, which have eroded pharmacy margins.

According to the Walgreens website, the following Hudson Valley towns have at least one location:

• Chappaqua
• Chester
• Dobbs Ferry
• Eastchester
• Ellenville
• Hawthorne
• Highland
• Highland Falls
• Kingston
• Larchmont
• Middletown
• Monroe
• Montgomery
• New City
• New Paltz
• Newburgh
• Nyack
• Peekskill
• Port Chester
• Port Jervis
• Poughkeepsie
• Saugerties
• Spring Valley
• Stone Ridge
• Stony Point
• Suffern
• Tappan
• Tarrytown
• Thornwood
• Vails Gate
• Valhalla
• Wappingers Falls
• Yonkers

With reporting from Patch's Eric Heyl.