Rite Aid has announced 2 more area store closings, with the closing sale already underway at the Erial store in Gloucester Township, and the recent announcement of another Williamstown Black Horse Pike store closing.
For Erial, the store closing signs and sales started mid last week, so area residents are likely already aware.
The Williamstown location was just announced 2 days ago and as of yesterday the closing signs were not in place. This news will likely come as a surprise to many locals. I’ve been told unofficially that the closing sale for Williamstown will start mid-week
The Williamstown location is on the Black Horse Pike at Kennedy Ave, in front of the Colonial Estates manufactured/mobile Home Park. It sits just a half mile south of the busy Cross Keys Road intersection.
Information on the Williamstown closing (and all closings) comes from publicly available documents related to the Rite Aid corporation bankruptcy restructuring.
That being said in my Williamstown visit yesterday, several of the shelves had very low stock which may have given the employees and customers an early clue of what was to come for the store.
For both Gloucester Township and Williamstown (Monroe Township) these closings are the second locations in each community, in the last six months,
In February of this year I reported on the closing of the Rite Aid on Blackwood-Clementon Road in Gloucester Township.
Back in October, it was announced that the other Black Horse Pike Rite Aid in Williamstown was closing. (Corkery Lane)
Additionally, about 10 days ago I reported that the CVS on the Black Horse Pike at Johnson Road was closing,
Factor in the long closed Rite Aid at Black Horse Pike and Cross Keys Road, and the closed Rite Aid on Cross Keys Road (at Johnson), that is FIVE large pharmacy buildings that have closed or closing, in this section of Washington and Monroe Townships over recent years… with FOUR of them on the Black Horse Pike.
it’s a bit crazy to think that not too long ago the pharmacy industry felt that all of these multimillion dollar developments were needed, and now “poof” they’re all gone.
Well for Rite Aid there are extenuating circumstances which are not completely tied to failures of the individual store locations, but more related to the general poor finances of the company which is forcing them to make tough decisions.
Rite Aid has been going through a bankruptcy restructuring process since last October, targeted at reducing costs, and closing stores… with some of those losses attributed to an expensive legal battle for allegedly filing unlawful opioid prescriptions.
In their bankruptcy announcement last fall, the chain had $135 million of cash on hand, which is considered low based on the 2,200 stores they operated. They also carried $3.3 billion in long-term debt. With rising interest rates that debt had become more expensive to finance.
Links and Locations
Rite Aid Erial – Closing
2090 Erial Clementon Road
Sicklerville, NJ 08081
Rite Aid Williamstown – Closing
1881 North Black Horse Pike
Williamstown, NJ 08094