BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — The Walgreens pharmacy at 120 Court St. and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn Heights will be closing at noon on June 4, according to a release put out by management.
A Walgreens spokesperson told the Brooklyn Eagle on Tuesday that the landlord had terminated the lease. After June 4, prescriptions will be automatically transferred to 386 Fulton St. in Downtown Brooklyn, and patients at the Court Street store will be eligible for free prescription delivery for 90 days.
Plans have been filed with the city’s Department of Buildings for a new, 14 story mixed-use tower with 75 dwelling units at 120 Court St. NA Design Studio is listed as the architect of record. Developer Abe Waldman of Bravon Capital LLC is listed as the owner. According to Pincus Co., Waldman paid $30 million for the property.
One employee told the Eagle that she did not know yet if she would be offered a job at a different location. Another said he was being transferred to a store in Queens.
This is the second (and final) Walgreens to close in the neighborhood. The first, at the corner of Montague and Court streets, shut down in March 2025. The space remains vacant.
The last Walgreens in Brooklyn Heights will be closing at noon on June 4. Photo: Mary Frost/Brooklyn Eagle
The closest Walgreens location to Brooklyn Heights is now 386 Fulton St. in Downtown Brooklyn, operating under the Duane Reade brand name. (Walgreens bought Duane Reade in 2010.) According to the store finder, there are currently 26 Walgreens/Duane Reade outlets operating in Brooklyn.
“Oh no, Walgreens closing?” said one commenter on the social media site NextDoor. “First my local Rite Aid which was a block away. Had to switch to Walgreens, a quarter mile away. If they close, my only option is CVS, a half mile away. Being a senior with mobility issues, I wouldn’t look forward to that.”
Walgreens, founded in 1901, operates roughly 8,000 retail locations nationwide. In 2014, Walgreens merged with international pharmacy group Alliance Boots to form Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc.
The Brooklyn Heights closure is part of a plan to shutter numerous locations described in 2024 as “underperforming” by WBA. At that time, the company said it was aiming to close more than a thousand locations by 2027, though that number has since been scaled back, according to the publication Fast Company.
The Walgreens logo on the front of a store, July 14, 2021, in Cambridge, Mass. AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File
Walgreens acquired by a private equity firm
In August 2025, WBA was acquired by New York private equity firm Sycamore Partners, in partnership with billionaire Stefano Pessina and his wife, pharmaceutical titan Ornella Barra. Pessina is former executive chair of Walgreens Boots Alliance. Barra has become chair of The Boots Group, a WBA spinoff. Both native Italians, the couple lives in Monaco.
Combination of factors, including opioid payouts, behind drugstore closings
A combination of factors has contributed to the wave of Walgreens closings, including declining profitability from drug reimbursement rates by insurance companies, a decline in the U.S. Retail Pharmacy sector, the increase in online shopping, losses tied to VillageMD, and Walgreens’ legal settlement payouts over the company’s role in the opioid crisis.
Other large chain pharmacies were also caught up in the opioid scandal. In 2022, a coalition of states, including New York, negotiated a settlement providing $5.7 billion from Walgreens and another $5 billion from CVS over illegal opioid prescriptions. In 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a separate $300 million settlement from Walgreens. Rite Aid was also hit with more than $400 million in penalties.
An arrangement of Oxycodone pills. Photo: Mark Lennihan/AP
CVS closes some locations; Rite Aid closing all stores
According to Becker’s Hospital Review, CVS has closed roughly 900 locations since 2021. One of these was a store at 168 Montague St. at Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights, which shut down in 2022. (In December, Blooming Prep signed a nine-year sub lease to open a progressive nursery school at the former CVS site, according to the Verada Retail.)
At that time, a Rite Aid at 101 Clinton St., just two blocks away, also closed. Multiple additional Rite Aid locations in Brooklyn closed following the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2025.
Roughly one in three U.S. retail pharmacies have closed since 2010, according to a study by researchers at the University of Southern Californiaand the University of California, Berkeley, published in December. These closures have had a significant negative impact on public health, the researchers concluded.
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