Rochester’s mayor is upset with the planned closing of a Walgreens drugstore in the Bulls Head neighborhood. And Malik Evans is upset enough to have written the CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance, the parent company for Walgreens, and the letter he released last Friday was also copied to a number of federal, state and local officials.
In the letter Evans wrote to CEO Tim Wentworth, he said he wanted to “implore you, in the strongest possible terms” to reconsider a recent decision to close a Walgreens drugstore at 792 W. Main Street.
The mayor noted that store is located in a densely populated, predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood “with a long history of concentrated poverty driven by racial segregation, discrimination and corporate disinvestment.”
Evans said that the decision by Walgreens comes less than two years after that drugstore chain closed a Walgreens store at 670 Thurston Road, and he said that with these two closures, “Walgreens will render Rochester’s entire southwest quadrant a medical desert.”
The letter from Rochester’s mayor also noted that even from a business perspective, the W. Main Street Walgreens is located in an area that is in the heart of one of the city’s “largest and boldest public and private community investment programs,” which Evans said will bring in more than $500 million in investment. Evans noted over the next several years, there will bring in hundreds of housing units, a corporate headquarters and training center and many other commercial uses.
A statement provided to WXXI News from a spokesperson from Walgreens, said that “increased regulatory and reimbursement pressures are weighing on our ability to serve our patients profitably."
The statement said that Walgreens has reached a point “where the current pharmacy model is not sustainable,” and the company is making substantial changes, including closing stores based on profitability “including this store in Rochester” which Walgreens said are not able to cover the costs associated with rent, staffing and supply needs.
Walgreens said it wasn’t an easy decision, but the company said it will work to minimize customer disruptions and intends to redeploy a majority of workers from that store, offering them jobs at other locations.
