Former New Kensington Rite Aid on market for $2.5M

The owner of a shuttered Rite Aid in New Kensington is looking to find a new tenant for the building or sell it for $2.5 million.

The building’s private owner will take whichever offer is most attractive, said Ian Dupre, an adviser with SVN Three Rivers Commercial Advisors.

The lease rate for the nearly 11,000-square-foot building at 700 Stevenson Blvd. is $14 per square foot, Dupre said. Rite Aid was paying closer to $18 or $19, he said.

“On average, pharmacies tend to pay top-of-market rent,” Dupre said. “It’s tough to find another tenant of the same quality and to have the building achieve the same valuation it had before when Rite Aid was in there.”

The New Kensington store was one of nine in Southwestern Pennsylvania that Rite Aid announced in October it would close after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The others are on Route 22 in Murrysville, Route 30 in Hempfield, Library Road in Bethel Park, University Boulevard in Moon Township, Wilmington Road in New Castle, Brighton Avenue in Rochester, Saw Mill Run Boulevard in Pittsburgh, and Keeport Drive in Baldwin.

Offers to lease or buy the New Kensington property have been made since November, but none attractive enough for the owner to take, Dupre said.

Rite Aid had been the building’s only tenant since it was built in 1998, Dupre said. It is in good condition with a new roof and HVAC. The roughly 2.3-acre property is zoned commercial.

It is suited for many new uses, such as discount retailers, auto service and urgent care, Dupre said. It could be used by one or multiple tenants.

“There’s a lot of different uses that can backfill a Rite Aid location. One of the big advantages of the building’s profile is it’s a big rectangle,” he said. “A feature Rite Aid liked about the space was the ability to bring a whole semi-truck through the lot.”

The location, with a traffic signal at the intersection of Stevenson Boulevard and Seventh Street, also should make the building attractive, Dupre said. While not in a main retail corridor likes Tarentum Bridge Road, the daily traffic count there is just under 20,000.

The property was last sold for about $3.2 million in November 2022, according to Westmoreland County property records. Current owner 700 Stevenson LLC, a Pennsylvania limited liability company based in Calabasas, Calif., bought it from MK-Menlo Stevenson, a Delaware limited partnership in Menlo Park, Calif.

The city is hopeful that the property will be put back to use.

“That spot is highly visible and attractive and is easily accessible,” Mayor Tom Guzzo said. “We’re hopeful that it may be something commercial in the retail area that would certainly meet the needs of everyone in the city as well as our surrounding area.”