The swankiest drug store in Manhattan – located inside the Trump Building in the Financial District – will shutter its doors amid a scourge of shoplifting, vandalism and because “the streets are dead,” The Post has learned.
The Duane Reade at 40 Wall Street, a 22,000-square-foot space that opened 12 years ago, will go out of business on Oct. 9, according to signs at the opulent store.
“It costs a lot of money to keep a big store like this open and the streets are dead with a lot of mom and pop stores nearby closing,” a store manager, who didn’t give his name, told The Post on Friday. “Shoplifting could be a big factor, too.”
The store has also recently been vandalized, with one of the entrances on Pine Street boarded up and still shut, a source told The Post.
Another massive Duane Reade store nearby at 100 Broadway, which opened in 2012, closed over the summer amid a crime wave that has hit drug store chains especially hard, employees told The Post.
Petit larceny in the neighborhood is up 13% over the past month compared to a year ago and has soared 100% over the past two years, according to NYPD crime data from the 1st precinct, which covers the Financial District.
Grand larceny theft — or stolen goods that are worth more than $1,000 — is up 37.2% over the past month compared to a year ago and spiked 69% over the past two years.
“Theft is probably a factor as to why those stores closed as well as foot traffic,” said a real estate executive who did not want to be identified.
It was not clear whether Duane Reade is breaking its lease with the Trump Organization.
“I’m sure some people won’t walk into that store because of where it is,” said a broker who asked to remain anonymous.
Representatives for Duane Reade, which was bought by Walgreens Boots Alliance in 2010, did not immediately respond for comment.
The Trump Organization did not respond.
The slow trickle of workers back to the office since the surge in hybrid work after the pandemic has also taken its toll on retailers across the city.
“If people aren’t coming to the office five days a week, local retailers are going to suffer,” the real estate exec said.
The 40 Wall St. store will likely join the 10 or more other Duane Reade stores in Manhattan that are on the market in search of new tenants to sublease its spaces.
Most of the leases have less than 10 years left, a real estate broker told The Post.
Founded in 1960, Duane Reade had been steadily shrinking even before the pandemic, as The Post reported.
In its heyday, the privately held company — which got its name from its first location between Duane and Reade streets on Broadway in Lower Manhattan — over-expanded, competing with banks for prime corner locations.
The 40 Wall St. location represented the future of the once mighty discount chain.
It opened with much fanfare as the first Duane Reade to have both a hair salon and nail salon, a fresh sushi bar, outdoor seating and a juice bar where employees whip up made-to-order smoothies.
Located in what used to be a Bank of Manhattan Trust branch, it has soaring ceilings, giant gothic archways, limestone walls and the feel of money.
Duane Reade management at the time even moved its headquarters to the 21st and 22nd floors of the Trump Building.
With the shuttering of 40 Pine, there will be about nine Duane Reade locations still open in Lower Manhattan.
“Duane Reade has a number of stores downtown,” said Newmark vice chairman Jeffrey Roseman. “This one was probably too big and too expensive.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
