The Zombie Pharmacies That Are Holding Back New York City Retail

The Zombie Pharmacies That Are Retaining Support New York City Retail

Over 1,000,000 sq. toes of retail space is empty in vacant chain-drugstore areas across New York City. Here’s why it’s so powerful to receive.

Aug. 6, 2024

An empty Duane Reade, steps from Wall Road, darkens a landmark dispute of job constructing.

A worn Walgreens in a condo in Murray Hill has been closed for over seven years.

A boarded-up Rite Support in Astoria has attracted a homeless encampment in its parking space.

They’re all examples of zombie pharmacies, the metropolis’s residing pointless.

Scores of chain drugstores that after anchored buying hubs across New York City remain shuttered at the same time as powerful of the metropolis’s storefront accurate property has bounced abet from the Covid-19 pandemic. Many would possibly perhaps well perhaps place that manner for years yet to come abet, attributable to ironclad leases, the scenario of finding original tenants for the sprawling areas and seismic shifts in the pharmacy commercial, brokers and substitute analysts stated.

The stop result’s over 1,000,000 sq. toes of top accurate property amassing dust in just a few of the busiest commercial districts, in response to a brand original prognosis of the metropolis’s pharmacy market. And critics instruct the stores bask in transform neighborhood eyesores that entice unlawful teach and detract from nearby businesses.

Now, commercial groups and elected officials are hoping to repurpose the areas into issues adore microbreweries and arcades, thanks in share to fresh zoning adjustments that allow for sign original makes exhaust of.

Since the vital quarter of 2020, prior to the pandemic, 222 monumental-box pharmacies bask in closed in New York City, and 138 stores had been aloof vacant in July, in response to Are residing XYZ, a mapping company that collects storefront records. The everyday-or-garden store ranges from 8,000 to 15,000 sq. toes, brokers stated.