Temple purchased a 45,000-square-foot commercial property across from the Health Sciences Center’s Kornberg School of Dentistry for $8.2 million, according to property records.
The property includes a Fine Wine & Good Spirits outpost, a PNC Bank, a Philadelphia Pretzel Factory, a Pizza Hut store, and a now-defunct Rite Aid.
“The former Rite Aid has the potential to become the home for Temple Health’s primary care physician services,” a Temple University spokesperson said in a statement to Temple News. “The other tenants of the shopping plaza will remain.”
Overbrook Management Corporation built the strip in the early 2000s and put it on the market in 2023. Rite Aid’s closure prompted Temple to move forward with the purchase “aggressively,” the seller told the Philadelphia Business Journal. The entire property is located in the 3200 block, at the corner of North Broad Street and Westmoreland Street.
Local business closures have impacted the Temple community over the past year, including three Rite Aid closures near campus, one at Cecil B. Moore near Broad Street; The other is on Broad near Susquehanna. Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy in October 2023 and closed its main campus stores in May and June, respectively.
Temple has purchased multiple properties around the main campus and HSC in recent years in hopes of revitalizing development on Broad Street. The purchase includes a 7-Eleven on Broad near Diamond Street in January 2023 and multiple properties on Carlisle Street near Diamond.
