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Pharmacies have strict requirements for drug storage and the like (source: wife is a pharmacist). It is possible that being adapted for a big pharmacy makes a s

Pharmacies have strict requirements for drug storage and the like (source: wife is a pharmacist). It is possible that being adapted for a big pharmacy makes a space unsuitable for other uses? As the article points out, the big box pharmacies have been replaced by smaller more drug focused ones, it's just the big chain heavy retail footprint places that are fewer in number. But those new pharmacies aren't going into the big spaces of the old, and it's possible that the needs for C2 storage, cold storage, etc. make it more difficult to work with the space for a purely retail or food concept.

Scoundreller 2y ago
I mean, you might have a big safe, but it’s nothing like a built-in bank vault. Though the “we just do meds” pharmacies are dying out in Canada as the margin is increasingly in the unregulated (price) over-the-counter products and you increasingly need the buying power of being a part of a chain for both meds and over-the-counter stuff. Sure if you can specialize in something you can survive against the chains, but it’s a slog.
- mandevil 2y ago
  My wife (1) says that is largely true too here in the US, that independent pharmacies are getting hammered on reimbursement rates and dropping like flies. But the NYTimes article says that the total number of pharmacies has stayed relatively constant since 2018, but that the number of big box chain pharmacies has dropped by half, so there might be some weird NYC exception to the general behavior? 1: She works in a hospital now, so she's not directly exposed to this, but she's worked in retail before and has plenty of friends who still do.
hansvm 2y ago
Those sorts of requirements are transient. It took something like a week of heavy labor for me to jackhammer out a reinforced bank safe to make room for a pet grooming facility. The majority of the cost to the new tenant was renting the jackhammer. It's not free, but on the scale of starting a new business it's not a big deal to retrofit a space.

Scoundreller 2y ago

I mean, you might have a big safe, but it’s nothing like a built-in bank vault. Though the “we just do meds” pharmacies are dying out in Canada as the margin is increasingly in the unregulated (price) over-the-counter products and you increasingly need the buying power of being a part of a chain for both meds and over-the-counter stuff. Sure if you can specialize in something you can survive against the chains, but it’s a slog.

mandevil 2y ago
My wife (1) says that is largely true too here in the US, that independent pharmacies are getting hammered on reimbursement rates and dropping like flies. But the NYTimes article says that the total number of pharmacies has stayed relatively constant since 2018, but that the number of big box chain pharmacies has dropped by half, so there might be some weird NYC exception to the general behavior? 1: She works in a hospital now, so she's not directly exposed to this, but she's worked in retail before and has plenty of friends who still do.

hansvm 2y ago

Those sorts of requirements are transient. It took something like a week of heavy labor for me to jackhammer out a reinforced bank safe to make room for a pet grooming facility. The majority of the cost to the new tenant was renting the jackhammer. It's not free, but on the scale of starting a new business it's not a big deal to retrofit a space.