Downtown Rite Aid To Close

Another loss of retail in downtown that offers vauable convenience to downtown residents and workers. Will Yale buy it to put in a classroom and take it off the tax rolls? Will Gateway expand and take it off the tax rolls? Will our mayor propose to turn in into an overnight shelter or a meth dispensary or a bigger public urinal for all those who daily urinate all around the great NH Mall??? Stay tuned.... And best of luck wishes to the great young people interviewed who are now jobless.

This is very sad.

I patronized this Rite-Aide for almost a decade. And, I've missed my trusted Pharmacist in recent times. The staff was always efficient, helpful and friendly.

It's a real neighborhood store and it will be missed.

So now there should be even more push from the city to add a full service, brand name carrying major chain grocery store with a pharmacy, a florist, a butcher shop counter, a fish counter, special diet department, a prepared foods counter and department, produce department, full service bakery, etc in the Church St South ground floor retail space. I love the ShopRite in Milford, and Wegmans.
You have lots of new residential builds and new biotech businesses and the new neuroscience hospital going up all over Downtown, The Hill, Ninth Square, Long Wharf, the Route 34 connector, etc,
They are all being built with reduced parking, and the residents, workers, visitors and students all need a place they can walk or bike to buy groceries and pharmaceuticals from.
Add in a Trader Joes https://www.traderjoes.com/home
and a Pasta Vita
https://www.pastavita.com/
or Cooking Company https://thecookingco.com/
or a Connecticut Fresh Food & Produce Market https://www.ctfreshfoodandproduce.com/ for catered and specialty and imported goods, prepared foods and meals to eat on site or to go, and youve created a wonderland of shopping and eating and living all within a short walk, bike ride, or bus trip from all over the city.
Add in protected bike lanes and a bus stop, and having it near the train station, the proposed multimodal transit center, the police station, the hospitals and medical school complexes, Yale, Gateway, and all the new residences and biotech STEMM businesses, and right off the highway to provide easy access for trucking in goods and drawing in shoppers from the suburbs, and add a parking garage like you have at 360 State integrated within the building, with mixed income residences, a rooftop terrace garden, daycare, a gym for all demographics, solar panels, and you have a work, live, play, mini city attraction that will become a jewel in our little city.

Expect more of this type of news as retailers realize that its impossible to break even in liberal cities;
https://www.kgw.com/article/money/business/target-close-portland-store-downtown-galleria-retail-theft/283-a41fe1a7-137a-48bc-b9a1-b33e7fcce21e

Ive been reading of pharmacies closing all over SF and NYC due to theft and security cost.

What even is the point of taxes, if the city doesnt help?

Its weird that when I called Rite Aids corporate office this past week, I was told this store was NOT on the list to close.

I suppose itll become another night club.

My taxes are high as hell! Whats the economic and cultural development plan for New Haven? Everything previous administrations have done to fortify downtown has been crumbling. The movie theater should have received economic development support to refurbish and update its facilities instead of closing. Are there any businesses planned aside from housing the homeless suburban addicts and smoke/pot shops?

Third pharmacy in a year closing with much due to shoplifting. Two Rite Aids and a CVS. 4 Walgreens and two CVSs to go!

Maybe when everyone refuses to do business in New Haven the pols will tell the courts to actually prosecute cases.

One of the major reasons stores like this are closing is because of the convenience and fast growth of on-line pharmacies that deliver your prescriptions to your mailbox. It should be obvious that everything else sold by Rite Aid can also be delivered to your door, and without the inconvenience of parking. Otherwise, the non pharmacy items sold at any Rite Aid are available a block away at CVS or three blocks away at Walgreens. The argument that any of these are otherwise 'neighborhood stores' is silly. They're big box stores selling the same stuff. New Haven still has a good number of local family run pharmacies.
Additionally, unless you are a public transportation user or are walking, downtown stores are difficult to support for dash in-dash out purchases. If you don't find an open metered space, why would you ever take the added time and spend the added money for a garage space to grab a bottle of aspirin?

Heather, I assume you mean city government when you call on the city to add a full service, brand name carrying major chain grocery store. The city can not do this, even though it would be great if a full service grocery located downtown. Grocery stores are allowed as of right downtown and in business districts across the city. The same is true for drug stores. (As of right means that property can be used for this purpose without getting a variance or similar zoning approval.) The city should (and does) provide lots of sites where grocery stores can locate. It can not force them to come here. (You will be glad to hear that a grocery store is planned for the Dixwell Plaza development.)

Shoplifting is an ongoing problem for stores. But the recent spike in shoplifting has been limited to a few cities, most notably New York. Excluding New York, shoplifting went down nationally in the first half of this year compared to the first half of 2022. (TV networks are based in New York and are particularly sensitive to what happens there.) And the fall in shoplifting occurred even as self-check out has become common in grocery and some other types of stores. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html#:~:text=Overall, shoplifting incidents were 16,17 reported decreases in shoplifting.

This is fine. CVS is a block away and provides better service.

Heather, the city has a very limited range of tools to get grocery stores or other retailers to locate here. It cant reduce their taxes, except for the phase-in that is available for all developers. It cant reduce the wages they pay their employees or the prices they pay their suppliers.

The city has a large number of vacant storefronts, including many in recently constructed buildings. It would love to fill them. But it faces structural forces beyond its control. New Haven had lots of bookstores when I arrived. Then came Amazon. Neighborhood hardware stores were common before Home Depot and Lowes. (A former Economic Development administrator was keen to bring a hardware store Downtown.)

I live one block outside of Downtown. I would love to have a full-scale grocery there. But even on the city-owned Church Street South site, there is a limited amount the city can do to bring one there.

Heather, I doubt that the Dixwell Plaza grocery will be Elm City Market II. If it were, ThreeFifths would not be the only one complaining, with good cause. It will be about 20,000 square feet, almost twice the size of Elm City Market. But it will substantially smaller than the superstores you find in the suburbs. Superstores are very land-intensive. In cities, land is expensive. As a result, you rarely see superstores in cities.