Sutton Walgreens to close

The local Walgreens store has been identified as one of 200 stores the corporate giant will close. The announcement came August 6th. Local employees were notified that the Sutton location was included in the downsizing last week. Glenville’s Walgreens will also be closed. According to informed sources, the two locations will close November 16. That same source stated that 83 Walgreens locations in this region were slated for closure in this wave.
On August 6, Walgreens announced that it would be closing 200 stores in the United States. These 200 store closures are in addition to parent company Walgreens Boot Alliance’s plan – announced earlier this year – to close 200 stores in the United Kingdom.
In a statement shortly afterwards, Walgreens said that these store closures are part of “a transformational cost management program to accelerate the ongoing transformation of our business, enable investments in key areas and to become a more efficient enterprise.” Walgreens’ share price has dipped slightly since the announcement.
While this closure of 200 stores represents less than 3 percent of Walgreen’s 10,000 locations in the United States, it signals a larger trend for the drugstore and pharmacy industry.
Walgreens was founded by Charles R. Walgreen, Sr. in 1901 as a neighborhood drugstore that measured only 50 feet by 20 feet. From that initial store in 1901, Walgreen started to expand his company. Twelve years after opening his first store, the Walgreens company had four locations – all on the south side of Chicago. The company became an established fixture in Chicago’s retail scene and later expanded to over 500 stores throughout the country by the 1930s.
Walgreens survived during the Great Depression and the company experienced decades of steady growth. The heart of Walgreens and the source of most of its profits has been through its prescription department. By 1975, there were more than 1,500 pharmacists filling 30 million prescriptions in 633 stores across the country. That growth continued until the recent downsizing.