Questions cloud midstate impact of Rite Aid deal

Roger DuPuis//November 13, 2015

Roger DuPuis//November 13, 2015

Long months lie ahead before Illinois-based Walgreens Boots Alliance’s proposed $17.2 billion purchase of East Pennsboro Township-based Rite Aid Corp. will be complete.

With them will come anxiety in those worried about what the deal will mean for more than 2,200 Rite Aid corporate jobs in the midstate.

So far, Walgreens’ stated position has been that Rite Aid initially will continue to operate under its own name following the sale, though exactly how long that might be is unclear.

Nothing has officially been said yet about the future of Rite Aid’s 205,000-square-foot property at 30 Hunter Lane, assessed at just over $11 million, or the people who work there.

In the meantime, there’s no shortage of opinions about what could happen — including how long the Rite Aid brand survives — and discussion of a remote chance that the $9-per-share deal, due to be completed in the second half of 2016, might not take place at all.

Bob Gorland, vice president of Lower Paxton Township-based Matthew P. Casey and Associates Inc., who specializes in supermarket and retail feasibility studies, said Walgreens will certainly be looking at how much overlap exists between positions in Illinois and at Rite Aid’s corporate headquarters here.

“Those people have to be extra nervous about their jobs,” Gorland said.

Little being said

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Local officials are worried about those jobs, too.

“At this point, we’re all still in a holding pattern,” Jonathan Bowser, CEO of the Cumberland Area Economic Development Corp., said during an interview nearly two weeks after news of the deal broke Oct. 27.

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