Struggling drugstore chain Rite Aid has put virtually its entire real estate portfolio on the block, all at a time when retail space is scarce but several companies in bankruptcy court are also marketing their store leases.
Just a day after Philadelphia-based Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors, its second time in less than two years, the company handling the sale of its properties released a list of the more than 1,200 sites across 15 states that are up for bid. The flyer sent out Tuesday includes 1,194 store leases as well as 50 properties that Rite Aid owns outright. The lease for Rite Aid's roughly 23,000 square feet of headquarters space at 1200 Intrepid Ave. is available, as are leases for six distribution centers and one small data center.
The Rite Aid stores vary widely in size, from about 5,000 square feet to 50,000 and 70,000, according to Emilio Amendola, co-president of A&G Real Estate Partners, the firm marketing the leases. Rite Aid, a 60-year-old pharmacy chain, will cease to exist after it sells or rejects its remaining leases, though a buyer could acquire the right to its name to run stores under that banner.
Rite Aid had already identified 47 stores that it doesn't see having a value and plans to close them as part of its initial wind-down, Chief Transformation Officer Marc Liebman said in an affidavit filed with the court. Those locations will be shut this month, with another round of about 1,000 that likely will start to close in June, Amendola told CoStar News. The chain intends to close all its 178 stores in New York state, according to several local news reports.
Rite Aid declined to comment.
Rite Aid is the latest in a series of retailers in the past 18 months to file for bankruptcy, put its store leases up for sale and close down their fleets. U.S. retail space right now is extremely scarce, at a 4.2% vacancy rate, according to CoStar data. That makes it harder for chains with expansion plans to find sites, which can benefit Rite Aid. The chain says it's already negotiating with potential buyers. But on the flip side, there have been a flurry of store leases, including some for Party City and Joann, that are being auctioned and don't appear to have all been sold yet. They are now part of the available space up for grabs.
Accommodating an array of uses
So while some retail experts said the Rite Aid leases will mostly find eager buyers, others are more skeptical. Amendola is optimistic.
"I think the demand will be good," Amendola said. "There are a number of possibilities. I think, dollar stores, for one. Some of the specialty food uses — the smaller, supermarket convenience stores. And some of the boxes get up to a pretty good size, so they could accommodate a number of different uses."
He pointed out that some of Rite Aid's locations haven't been available for years, and a number of them have below-market rents.
"There's real opportunity here," Amendola said. "Look, some of the rents are going to be high. But there's a good number of them that are good, attractive rents with long-term remaining. At one point, [Rite Aid was] a sought-after tenant. So there's some good deals here."
There are 275 store locations that have or will have "purchase agreements for regional transactions in process," Rite Aid said in a court filing.
Rudy Milian, president and CEO of retail consulting firm Woodcliff Realty Advisors, was bullish about the demand for Rite Aid's store leases.
"Rite Aid’s real estate is highly adaptable with sizes and features attractive to a broad range of retailers, restaurants and service providers," he said in an email to CoStar News. "With vacancy levels at a multiyear low across the U.S. at convenience, neighborhood and community centers, nearly all the vacated Rite Aid spaces will be absorbed without doubt over the next two years — and at higher rent spreads."
Rite Aid stores are typically freestanding buildings averaging between 10,000 and 15,000 square feet, on sites at high-visibility, high-traffic intersections, according to Milian. But there are also stores that are part of shopping centers, he said.
Milian cited several examples of new tenants at former Rite Aid locations, including a Planet Fitness that took over one in Edmonds, Washington, in the Puget Sound area.
"Dollar General and Dollar Tree have historically been the most frequent replacements for shuttered drugstores, including Rite Aid locations, due to their similar space requirements," he said. "But the dollar store category is in transition as well, so I don’t expect dollar stores to buy out the bulk of those leases this time around."
The nation's top drugstore chains — not only Rite Aid but CVS Health and Walgreens Boots Alliance — for the past few years have all been struggling through financial headwinds and closing hundreds of underperforming stores due to shifting consumer habits, lower reimbursement rates, and stiffer competition from rivals such as Amazon and Walmart. In March, Walgreens took a different approach than Rite Aid in order to mount a turnaround. It forged an agreement to go private in a $10 billion buyout deal with Sycamore Partners.
That makes CVS and Walgreens unlikely takers for any of Rite Aid's leases, according to Neil Saunders, a retail analyst and managing director at analytics firm GlobalData.
"There are wildcards, such as Amazon, which could at least buy the Seattle native Bartell Drugs subsidiary," Saunders said in a note Monday. "But this is a long shot."
Bill Read, an executive vice president at Retail Specialists, carefully follows who has been buying Party City and Joann leases. He said there are still some available from those batches, and the Rite Aid stores will add to that supply.
"Even in a supply-constrained market, there are only so many people looking for these kinds of spaces," Read told CoStar News.
Distribution centers make the list
As part of its bankruptcy proceeding, Rite Aid can reject store leases that fail to sell, leaving landlords responsible for that vacant space. The list will shrink if and when Rite Aid strikes its own deals to sell some leases, according to Amendola.
As of this week's Chapter 11 filing, Rite Aid operated 1,277 stores, according to Liebman.
During its first bankruptcy, Rite Aid sold or wound down roughly 800 underperforming stores in total across the country, including substantially all its stores in Michigan and Ohio, according to Liebman. Since emerging from that bankruptcy in September last year, Rite Aid has closed an additional 29 underperforming stores, he said.
In addition to the stores, there are leases for a half dozen distribution centers on the list, including:
- 9200 Telstar Ave., El Monte, California.
- 30th Street and Avenue H, Lancaster, California.
- 601 Chelsea Road, Aberdeen, Maryland.
- 701 Delran Parkway, Delran, New Jersey.
- 325 Welltown Road, Winchester, Virginia.
- 21202 24th Ave. S, Des Moines, Washington.
Liebman blamed Rite Aid's crushing financial problems after emerging from its first bankruptcy on not having the liquidity to keep its shelves stocked and lower-income patrons opting not to purchase household goods at the pharmacy after they picked up their prescriptions.