Iconic Drug Store Closing Stores Including Missouri Locations

Walgreens first opened in 1901 under the name Walgreen Drug Co., and it has been trying to help people feel better ever since. Unfortunately, some Walgreens customers are about to be impacted by significant store closures.

On Thursday, news came out that Walgreens will close a "substantial number" of its roughly 8,600 locations in the United States as the company looks to rebound from its current financial struggles. According to CNN Business, the company didn't announce a specific number of stores that will close. Still, Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth said "changes are imminent" for around 25% of the chain's unprofitable stores. He said the drugstore will close a significant number of those stores.

CNN's deep dive into Walgreens cites falling retail sales due to the cost-of-living crisis, which has people shopping for deals, competition on the prescription side of the business from Amazon, and shrinking reimbursement rates for prescription drugs. Not even the popularity of drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro to treat weight loss and diabetes has helped, as the drugstore said it is losing money on filling those prescriptions.

Irish Star has a list of Walgreens stores slated for closing, although it doesn't cite where it got the list, so take it with a grain of salt. Looking through the list, though, I'm familiar with many of the stores closing in Chicagoland, Lubbock, and Davenport, where I lived.

One of Walgreens's problems seems to be overexpansion in certain areas, like Chicago. Growing up there, Walgreens had a fair number of stores in the Chicago area; by the time I left, the number of stores seemed ridiculous. Additionally, during my time in Lubbock, while not as bad as Chicago, it still seemed that perhaps the drug store had one or two more stores than needed for a city that size.

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In Missouri, Irish Star says the Walgreens at 1605 W 7th Street in Joplin and 1400 N Grand Boulevard in St. Louis will close. Missouri losing two stores isn't bad, considering the list has ten Chicagoland area stores closing.

For now, no other Missouri Walgreens stores seem on the chopping block; however, given the store's presence in Missouri, it wouldn't surprise me to see more Missouri closures, especially since the St. Louis area has 99 locations and the Kansas City area has 59 locations, according to Walgreens' store locator.