Walgreens closing West Main Street store, sparking reactions from mayor and community (2025)

(This story was updated to add new information.)

Bonnie Myers learned from her brother-in-law that the West Main Street Walgreens was closing as she picked up her husband’s prescription.

“We [she and her brother-in-law] were just discussing that we don’t know what the next move is,” Myers said. “I’m not sure where we’ll go to get our prescriptions once this is closed.”

On Sept. 19, a Walgreens representative informed the City of Rochester that the company intends to close the West Main Street store as part of a nationwide closure of 2,500 stores.

The closure will reduce Walgreens’ presence in the city to three stores and severely limit pharmacy services in southwest Rochester.

Just two miles away, the Walgreens on Thurston Road in Rochester’s 19th Ward shut its doors on Nov. 7, 2022.

More: New Family Dollar coming to former Walgreens site in Rochester. Is it what residents wanted?

Despite the news, things seemed normal on Monday afternoon at the West Main location. Many patrons only entered the store for medicine, which speaks to fears that the closure would create a pharmacy desert for residents.

However, Enjoli Times said that although it is less convenient, she would get her prescriptions filled at the hospital once Walgreens closes.

The company plans to redirect customers to the Walgreens at 457 Lyell Ave.

On behalf of the 19th Ward Community Association, in a letter to Tim Wentworth, CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Cody Donahue wrote, "About a quarter of our neighbors do not have access to a vehicle needed to travel to the other Walgreens, CVS and Walmart locations in the surrounding towns, effectively cutting them off from vital health supplies found in a traditional drug store."

"Walgreens has provided access to basic amenities to our residents for years. The shuttering of this location will now deprive them of basic amenities. Everything from a bottle of Ibuprofen to a life-saving COVID and Flu Vaccine will now require residents of SW Rochester, over 50,000 of us, to leave our neighborhood to access basic amenities," Donahue said.

In a statement, Mayor Malik Evans demanded that the parent company of the Walgreens drug store chain immediately halt plans to close the storefront.

“Walgreens’ intention to continue this history of disinvestment in yet another of Rochester’s densely populated, majority-minority neighborhoods is deeply disturbing and patently outrageous, as it comes less than two years after the closure of the Walgreens store at 670 Thurston Road, an area with similar demographic and historic characteristics,” Mayor Evans wrote in an open letter to Wentworth.

“With these closures, Walgreens will render Rochester’s entire southwest quadrant a medical desert, with residents denied full and convenient access to the lifesaving, health-preserving medications, and medical supplies found in a traditional drug store,” the Mayor's statement continued. “I will remind you that minority populations like those in these neighborhoods disproportionately struggle with a myriad of healthcare challenges compounded by limited access to transportation."

Mayor Evans also called Walgreens’ attention to the $500 million in ongoing investments from the neighborhood's Bulls Head Revitalization Project and the expansion of the St. Mary’s Medical Campus. Over the next three to five years, these investments will include 800 new housing units and many other commercial properties.

The city also anticipates that the Bulls Head Neighborhood will experience substantial organic investment due to its proximity to Downtown Rochester, with ongoing investments totaling more than $1 billion.

Walgreens released a statement on the closing stating:

Our retail pharmacy business is central to our go-forward business strategy. However, increased regulatory and reimbursement pressures are weighing on our ability to serve our patients profitably. We’ve reached a point where the current pharmacy model is not sustainable, and the challenges in our operating environment require that we approach the market differently. We are making substantial changes to our store footprint, closing stores based on profitability including this store in Rochester which are not able cover the costs associated with rent, staffing, and supply needs. While it is not an easy decision to close a store, we will work to minimize customer disruptions. We intend to redeploy the majority of our team members and offer our dedicated team members new roles at other locations

Mayor Evans said that, based on his 20 years in the banking industry, he believed the company's decision was "financially shortsighted as it is socially irresponsible.”

The mayor offered to personally meet with members of the Walgreens team to help them learn more about the Bulls Head project and other positive developments in Rochester.

“For these reasons and more, I believe Walgreens’ decision to compound the harm it has already inflicted on the people of Rochester with the closure of another store in a majority-minority neighborhood is as bad for Walgreens as it is for my community.”

As a Rochester native, Justice Marbury entered the world of journalism to create work where voices like hers were heard—the voices of minority communities. Marbury covers small businesses, neighborhood concerns, and the interesting people who live in Rochester's 19th Ward. As the 19th Ward reporter, she has helped implement community outreach ideas by asking what people in various communities want to read about themselves in addition to regular news. Contact her on Instagram @justice_marbury and by email at jmarbury@gannett.com.