An empty Rite Aid on Cooper Street
is becoming a Dollar Tree

Dollar Tree is going into the former Rite Aid at 860 Cooper Street in Deptford Township, the building that sits directly in front of the Cooper Street Walmart and a short distance from the Cooper Street and Delsea Drive intersection. The first sign of a new tenant was a section of the roadside Rite Aid sign replaced with dark green plastic. The retailer is now hiring for the address, including an assistant manager.

It would be Dollar Tree's third store in Deptford. The original is in the Clements Bridge Road shopping center across from the Deptford Mall, and a second sits farther southeast along Route 41, in the center in front of Home Depot. All three are near the mall area but spread far enough apart to serve different parts of the township, and the Cooper Street building also puts the chain within reach of Woodbury's eastern neighborhoods.

The conversion is one of several. A Dollar Tree opened a few weeks ago in a former Rite Aid in Barrington, and another is being built in Swedesboro with a September opening expected. Blackwood, Stratford and Mullica Hill have seen the same swap. Dollar Tree is not the only retailer doing it: AutoZone opened in a former Rite Aid in Williamstown, and another is proposed for Clayton.

The reason these particular buildings keep moving is where they sit. Many Rite Aid and other pharmacy locations were built 20 or 30 years ago on prime corners in densely populated suburban towns and along heavily traveled roads, which tends to be the hardest kind of retail space to find now. That makes an empty pharmacy one of the faster vacancies on a South Jersey highway to fill.