Walgreens Closing Store Infamous For Basketball Player Incident
Fourth Milwaukee store closure in less than two years.
Walgreens at 2625 W. National Ave. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Walgreens is shuttering its store and pharmacy at 27th and National on Nov. 3. It will be the fourth store to close in Milwaukee in the past two years.
The closure comes the same week as the company announced it would close 1,200 stores in the United States over the next three years, including 500 in its next fiscal year.
There are approximately 8,500 Walgreens stores in the United States, but during a call with investors, the company revealed that one in four stores are unprofitable.
The Milwaukee store set to close, 2625 W. National Ave., has been located at one of the busiest southside intersections for 18 years. But that alone isn’t enough to save it.
“Our retail pharmacy business is central to our go-forward business strategy. However, increased regulatory and reimbursement pressures are weighing on our able cover the costs associated with rent, staffing and supply needs,” said Walgreens in a statement. “It is never an easy decision to close a store. We know that our stores are important to the communities that we serve, and therefore do everything possible to improve the store performance. When closures are necessary, like this store in Milwaukee, we will work in partnership with community stakeholders to minimize customer disruptions. We intend to redeploy the majority of our team members from those stores that we close.”
It will join store closures that already occurred at 2222 W. Capitol Dr., 6707 W. Hampton Ave. and 2410 W. Forest Home Ave. The company, according to permit records, will still operate 24 stores in the city and several more in surrounding suburbs.
Infamous Store
Milwaukee residents who never set foot inside the store might still be familiar with it given what happened in its parking lot in January 2018.
Then-Milwaukee Bucks guard Sterling Brown was observed by a Milwaukee Police Department as having parked across handicapped spaces in the store’s parking lot at 2 a.m.
A responding officer called for backup within moments of arriving on the scene, which escalated to Brown, then 23, being tased and thrown to the ground. Another officer chanted “money, money” in reference to overtime while eight officers were on the scene. Brown was never charged with a crime and body camera footage shows officers being confrontational with Brown from the outset of the interaction.
Brown, with attorney Mark Thomsen, sued the city in federal court. He won a $750,000 settlement, seven changes to MPD’s standard operating procedures, an involved officer being assigned away from patrol duty and a public apology. An officer was fired over social media posts related to the incident and three more were disciplined.
But the settlement caused the city even more embarrassment when then-City Attorney Tearman Spencer released a version that the city would admit the officers violated Brown’s constitutional rights. That provision, highly unusual for a police conduct case, was stripped from the agreement after being discussed in multiple closed-session meetings.
The store’s legacy with Sterling Brown has no explicit impact on its closing. Walgreens was never accused of any wrongdoing in the incident and wasn’t part of Brown’s lawsuit.
Walgreens does not own the property, which includes a small outlot building that creates a more urban intersection at S. Layton Boulevard (27th) and W. National Avenue. A Metro by T-Mobile cell phone store continues to operate in that building.
The property, assessed for $3.1 million, is owned by In Manus Dei, LLC, a Los Angeles-based company. The company acquired the property for $8.95 million in 2015.
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It is also distinctly possible, even likely, that Walgreen’s was cursed from the start at this location because it built on a sacred site. That would be the world-famous and universally beloved and revered National Liquor Bar. And its iconic pouring bottle sign. As the anchor of the community, and a global destination, the National Liquor Bar’s high-class and super-elite clientele was devastated by its closure and the loss of the sign, which helped many find their way home. 26th Street, all the way from National Avenue to Mineral Street has never been the same.