Odd aid

And for the final tour of this conjoined set, here's the center's Rite Aid! This store is rather odd -- it was clearly built following the 90s Diamond Windows prototype which is super common, but the outside is largely custom and matches the rest of the redeveloped mall (which this store was built at the same time as, probably replacing an in-mall location). The most obvious change is the lack of the normal structure over the doors, with the building being cut off at the angle of the doors (and a small standalone canopy in its place), and the other particularly odd one is that this store does not have the distinctive diamond windows, instead having normal rectangular ones!

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 12, 2022 at 9:45 PM

    All Rite Aids are odd to me! Well, that's not quite true. There are a few examples of old Eckerd locations that got turned into Rite Aid without Rite Aid doing much to them. Those buildings wouldn't be too strange to me since Eckerd was a fixture here in Houston for a few decades. Still, most Rite Aids are strange to us!

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    1. Northwest RetailJanuary 13, 2022 at 7:27 PM

      I didn't realize Texas never had Rite Aids -- they had a lot of locations elsewhere in the southeast and southwest, so it's surprising they stayed away from Texas (and also Arizona and New Mexico, it looks like). Then again, Rite Aid's geographical coverage is certainly a bit strange since so much of their growth came from buying up other chains.

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    2. AnonymousJanuary 13, 2022 at 8:30 PM

      Rite Aid did briefly have some locations in East Texas via their buyout of the K&B chain that was prominent in Louisiana about 25 years ago, but those locations did not last too long once Rite Aid got control of them. At one time in the early 2000s, Walgreens, Eckerd, and CVS were all taking Texas quite seriously and I suppose Rite Aid never really saw a realistic opportunity for them to compete here. Add to that the number of supermarkets with pharmacies in Dallas and Houston (often with pharmacy drive-thrus) and I suppose that gave Rite Aid even more reason to be wary. I don't think Rite Aid would have done well here so maybe it was for the better that they stayed away.

      Rite Aid did buy the RediClinic chain of small clinics that was based out of Houston and were mostly located in HEB leased areas, but it seems Rite Aid shut down RediClinic last year and we're back to no longer a Rite Aid presence.

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  2. Retail RetellJanuary 13, 2022 at 5:23 AM

    Wow, that is interesting! Looks much more like a Walgreens than a Rite Aid to me.

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