CVS closing downtown Fresno store amid Fulton Street revitalization. Here’s what we know

One of only a few retail pharmacies in downtown Fresno – a longtime anchor at the north end of what was the Fulton Mall – will be closing within weeks.

The CVS store at 1302 Fulton Street will be shutting its doors Sept. 13, the national retail chain confirmed this week. The 22,350-square-foot building at Fulton and Tuolumne streets was for decades a mainstay at the north end of the Fulton Mall.

Monica Prinzing, a senior corporate communications manager for CVS, described the closure as a “difficult decision.”

In an email response to queries from The Fresno Bee, Prinzing said customers’ prescriptions will be transferred to the CVS store at the northwest corner of Shields Avenue and First Street, a little more than three miles to the north. “All store employees are being offered comparable roles at other CVS Pharmacy locations,” she added.

The store was built in 1973 and for years operated as a Longs Drugs store until that chain was taken over by CVS in 2008.

Prinzing did not specify what rationale went into the decision to close the Fulton Street location. “Maintaining access to pharmacy services in underserved communities is an important factor we consider when making store closure decisions,” she wrote. “Other factors include local market dynamics, population shifts, a community’s store density, and ensuring there are other geographic access points to meet the needs of the community.”

The Fresno closure follows the shutdown in February of the CVS store in Fowler. Prescriptions from that store were transferred to a Walgreens store in Selma.

CVS has 25 stores in the Fresno-Clovis area, including seven that are located inside Target department stores. The company has almost 50 stores throughout Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare counties.

Once the Fulton Street location closes, the nearest CVS store for customers will be more than three miles away, at Shields Avenue and First Street. In southeast Fresno, two are located along Kings Canyon Road, one at Peach Avenue and the other at Fowler Avenue, four and six miles from the downtown store.

The next nearest national retail pharmacy chain is a Rite Aid store about two-thirds of a mile away, at Fresno and B streets in the Kearney Palms Shopping Center. Several smaller independent pharmacies also dot the area within a few miles of the CVS store.

The property is owned by Longs Drugs Stores California Inc., an entity that kept its name after CVS purchased the Longs chain in 2008. Fresno County property tax data online indicates that the site has an assessed value of almost $2 million, including $285,000 for the land under the store.

CVS Health announced last fall that it would be closing about 900 its of stores nationwide – about one tenth of its approximately 10,000 retail locations, at a pace of about 300 stores each year over a three-year span.

Impact on downtown?

The closure of the downtown store will create a sizable void on Fulton Street, which has been the focus of a major revitalization effort in recent years buttressed by the 2017 reopening of Fulton Street to vehicle traffic for the first time since the downtown pedestrian mall was built in 1964.

Over the past few years, numerous small businesses have set up shop on the rebuilt Fulton Street, hoping to spark a renaissance for a six-block stretch of the former mall from Inyo Street on the south to Tuolumne Street on the north. The south end of Fulton Street, not far from the Chukchansi Park baseball stadium, has become known as the city’s “Brewery District” as several craft breweries, beer gardens, lounges and related businesses have established themselves in the neighborhood.

Fulton Street was once a thriving hub for retailers both large and small into the 1950s and 1960s. But the development of the Fulton Mall was an experiment in urban pedestrian-oriented design that failed to keep the major retailers that once populated downtown from migrating northward during decades of suburban sprawl. Their flight from Fulton left major streetfront chasms that contributed to a downward spiral of blight for some of the buildings.

The Associated Press reported in November major drugstore chains routinely close stores that are underperforming or for other business reasons. Analysts said that the growth of online shopping has reduced the need for major chains like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid to operate a large network of brick-and-mortar stores that are within a short drive from most customers’ homes.

The migration of customers to online shopping was accelerated by stay-at-home health orders put in place in early and mid-2020 in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

CVS executives in November said they have been evaluating population changes, customer habits and future health needs to “ensure that it has the right kinds of stores in the right locations,” the AP reported.

Those changes include adopting several different store models: traditional pharmacies with retail products and some health care services; locations that focus on primary care for customers; and breaking out enhanced versions of its “HealthHUB” locations.

CVS Health not only operates retail pharmacies, but also sells health insurance and manages prescription drug plans for large insurers and employers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.