After working the night shift at a recovery house, Janice Richardson drives home. The 66-year-old eastsider usually stops to check on the remains of her neighborhood’s CVS Pharmacy.
The nearly 2-acre lot has been vacant since March. The windows are boarded up, the corporate logo gone.
It’s one of at least 28 pharmacies that have closed in Indianapolis since 2020. Across the city, people are facing longer lines or waiting on their medications for days.
But here at the shuttered East 38th Street location, residents are also seeing growing piles of trash. They’re worried about drug activity, too.
“It’s a dump,” Richardson said as she waded through tree branches and empty liquor bottles on Aug. 6. “I’ve called CVS corporate, and they will not do anything.”
The Marion County Public Health Department found multiple violations at the property, records show, after two inspections in July. That includes animal manure, garbage, weeds and junk vehicles. CVS had until Aug. 8 to correct the violations, per a letter, or face fines.
See the letter
Property records and health inspections show the Rhode Island-based pharmacy giant owns the parcel. But in an email to Mirror Indy, a spokesperson for CVS said the company wasn’t responsible.
“CVS Pharmacy does not own the property,” spokesperson Kara Page wrote in an Aug. 7 email to Mirror Indy. “We are aware of the notice in Marion County and working to rectify the situation.”
Page did not answer questions about the discrepancies in property records, the violations found by the health department or the concerns of neighbors. But she confirmed the location closed in March.
“All prescriptions were transferred to the nearby CVS Pharmacy at 6975 N. Pendleton Pike in Indianapolis,” she wrote, “which is less than 2 miles away, to ensure patients had uninterrupted access.”
Residents said they want to know when the company will start taking care of the empty location or sell it so another business can. The lot is along the Purple Line, an IndyGo bus rapid transit route connecting Lawrence to downtown.
“It’s causing urban decay,” said Greg Garrett, 41. “There’s no effort to find a new use for this building.”
He is among several community members drafting a letter to CVS. They said their complaints have gone unheard for five months.
Cecilia Dodson said she tried calling the corporation multiple times but got “the run around.” The 87-year-old is the president of the Audubon Gardens Neighborhood Association, which has organized clean-ups. But the dumping has continued.
“How much filth do they think we can stand?” Dodson asked.
‘What they feel like they can get away with’
CVS has closed at least 900 stores across the country between 2022 and 2024. They plan to shutter an additional 270 locations this year, USA Today reported.
Get the backstory
It’s part of a larger wave of pharmacy closures that’s also hitting chains like Walgreens and Rite Aid. The losses are driven, in part, by falling profits and staffing struggles.
Page said CVS considered market dynamics, population shifts, store density and the community’s overall access to pharmacies in the decision to close the 38th Street location.
A spokesperson for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said officers are aware of the vacant lot and continue to monitor it. CVS also signed an agreement in April to allow IMPD to arrest people for trespassing on the property, Officer Tommy Thompson told Mirror Indy.
“We need the community to come forward,” he said. “If you see something, please contact us or use the Mayor’s Action Center.”
But Richardson wonders why it had to get to this point.
“CVS is making an assumption about this neighborhood,” she said. “It’s what they feel like they can get away with.”
Mirror Indy, a nonprofit newsroom, is funded through grants and donations from individuals, foundations and organizations.
Mirror Indy reporter Mary Claire Molloy covers health. Reach her at 317-721-7648 or email maryclaire.molloy@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @mcmolloy7.
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