Former Wash Heights Rite Aid Stores Listed For Sale After Bankruptcy

INWOOD, NY - The leases for two former Washington Heights Rite Aid stores are now up for sale following the company’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Patch has learned.

The sites for sale — 4188 Broadway near West 178th Street and 1033 St. Nicholas Ave. near West 162nd Street — are both already shuttered. The stores are part of roughly 78 nationwide leases being sold by the company's real estate portfolio advisor A&G Real Estate Partners.

A third New York City store, located in Chelsea at 195 8th Ave. near West 20th Street, also has its lease up for sale. The 10,757-square-foot location sits across the street from a still-operational Walgreens Pharmacy.

Three current Rite Aid stores in the Big Apple are set for closure. The locations are in Queens and Brooklyn. The company did not say when the stores would close.

There are now five Rite Aid stores in operation in Manhattan. They are located in Washington Heights (4046 Broadway), Harlem (2170 Frederick Douglass Blvd.), Midtown (26 Grand Central Terminal), West Village (534 Hudson St.) and East Village (81 1st Ave.).

Related: NYC Target Store To Close: East Harlem Crime Blamed

Rite Aid’s bankruptcy comes amid slumping sales and heavy debt from an opioid lawsuit filed by the Justice Department in March that accuses the company of filling prescriptions for large quantities of opioids “that had obvious, and often multiple, red flags indicating misuse.”

Other drug store chains, including rivals CVS and Walgreens, have settled similar lawsuits, but were better positioned financially. But even they are struggling and closing in a tough environment for national drug store chains as Amazon and big-box retailers like Walmart, Target, Costco and others make it more convenient to have prescriptions filled, CNN reported.

Rite Aid said it had secured $3.45 billion in financing and debt reduction agreements that will help it stay afloat through the court-supervised bankruptcy. The company will sell off its Elixir Solutions, its prescription benefit provider.

Prescriptions of customers of the affected stores will be transferred to a nearby Rite Aid or other drug store “so that there is no disruption of service,” the company said in a statement. People who work at the stores will also be transferred to other Rite Aid locations where possible, the company said.