The CVS located at 1026 Madison Ave. has closed down permanently on Sept. 26, 2023. All current prescriptions have been sent to their location at 613 New Scotland Ave. According to the Times Union, CVS spokesperson Amy Thibault announced the decision to close down the Madison Ave. location was based on “population shifts and a community’s store density.”
News of the store’s closing has led to both anxiety and frustration among the Saint Rose community. Since the store’s opening, the CVS has been a staple for Saint Rose students to purchase various goods without having to travel outside of the immediate area. Now, they are reluctantly forced to take their business elsewhere.
Sophomore Ariana Condolora said, “I have depended on this CVS to get any cold or allergy medicine I need since I started at Saint Rose. We’re in college, we get sick all the time. Since I don’t have a car, what am I supposed to do now?”
The issue pertaining to transportation is a common complaint among Saint Rose patrons of the CVS. “I don’t drive, so now my friends and I are going to have to walk to get toiletries or even makeup somewhere else. It’s not very safe to do that as a young person in Albany,” said sophomore Kayla Chapel.
“We could still walk to the Market 32 right next to CVS, but everything is so expensive there,” Chapel added. “Nobody wants to go there if they don’t have to.”
Due to the mounting concerns over where students can safely go to purchase the items they once found at CVS, there is a new push for Saint Rose to offer access to some of the necessities that students need.
“I feel like Saint Rose does an okay job at providing essentials like condoms and other things like that, but I think they could definitely do us a solid by maybe having a place we can go to buy toothbrushes, shampoo, deodorant- stuff like that on campus,” Condolora said.
While students at Saint Rose are learning to adapt to the change of being without their local CVS, the disappointment is still felt by many. The uncertainty of what will be taking the place of 1026 Madison Ave. has left the Saint Rose community hoping for better news.
