Walgreens Closes Ingleside Store After Decades Of Service

The last pharmacy on Ingleside’s Ocean Avenue officially closed for good.

The national drugstore chain Walgreens announced last month that it would close 12 locations across San Francisco. The neighborhood’s only drug store closed at noon on Thursday, placing signs on its doors that read “permanently closed” as workers took away shelving and removed its outdoor signage.

Residents will have to travel to nearby neighborhoods West Portal or the Mission for essentials and prescriptions.

Ocean Avenue Association’s Community Ambassador Roland Lee was disappointed to see the bare shelves when he went to grab essential items like deodorant and soap.

“It’s sad, especially for the elderly that need their prescriptions and everyone else that patronizes the store,” said Lee, who added he will now go to the West Portal location. “It’s going to be a lot of hardship for some people but the good thing is we have [the K-Ingleside light rail] to take us. That’s the lifeline to our Walgreens.”

Economic Vitality

Ingleside’s stretch of Ocean Avenue has a vacancy rate of over 10%. The Walgreens location will be another hard-to-fill large space, joining the long-vacant CVS Pharmacy space a block over.

Elected officials and city departments are reacting to the departure of the dozen pharmacies across the city and in Ingleside. The Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the Ocean Avenue Association, District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar and District 11 Supervisor Chyanne Chen are all on the case.

The OAA’s Deputy Director Gabe Cory said he has offered the association’s assistance to the property managers for maintenance and cleaning.

Chen said she will work to find a replacement drugstore in its place and hopes to replace it with a local pharmacy, similar to the Central Drug Store on Mission Street in the Excelsior.

Jackie Fielder, the supervisor for the Mission, wants to explore a city-backed cooperative pharmacy network.

“San Francisco is open for business and Mayor Lurie is focused on delivering the safe and clean streets that will drive our comeback,” OEWD’s spokesperson told The Ingleside Light. “His administration stands ready to partner with businesses that want to invest in this city and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development stands at the ready to deploy all that we can to get a business that can be successful in the Ocean Avenue space.”

OEWD will use tools like offering in-house leasing support that can help local brokers route potential tenants, a storefront opportunity grant program that helps businesses open in vacant storefronts, SF Shines grant program that supports capital improvements and their First Year Free program, which waives the cost of initial registration fees, license fees, first-year permit, and other applicable fees for qualifying businesses, to help fill the space.

Merchants along Ocean Avenue are more than dismayed by the news of the closure. Fruit Barn, which sits to the right of Walgreens, is already seeing the closure’s negative impact. The grocer’s manager Zak T. said foot traffic has been falling off since the drugstore announced the closure.

“We feel very disappointed since it’s like a landmark, I suppose, for this avenue,” Zak T. said. “I believe it’s going to affect deeply the neighborhood and especially the avenue and the whole city.”

Across the street at Faxon Garage, Walee Gon said he finds these closures harmful to the city.

Though business at the auto repair shop may not be altered, Gon said the absence of the drugstore will affect the area but he wasn’t sure of the degree.

“Before you had CVS and this,” Gon said. “Losing one is okay but it’s going to be difficult and hopefully somebody comes in to replace it but we haven’t been seeing that.”