The U-District’s Rite Aid will close by the end of this year. The longtime neighborhood drugstore could not turn a profit and will vacate the large property on the 4500 block of the Ave sometime before 2010, said Rite Aid spokesperson Ashley Flower.

“They’ve been on the edge, on the margin, for awhile,” said Teresa Lord Hugel, executive director for the U-District Chamber of Commerce. “I believe they’ve had a lot harder time since Walgreens moved in.”

The nearby Walgreens opened in 2004, rounding out a neighborhood already hosting a Bartell Drugs and Rite Aid. Employees at Rite Aid could not say why their store became unprofitable, citing the corporate office as the group that made the call.

But the unfavorable economy, business competition and other unquantifiable factors, like the store’s unattractive storefront, seem to have contributed to the store’s demise, Hugel said.

Outside numerous stores along the 4500 block, loiterers stand along the sidewalks. Some of them congregate around the bus stop directly outside Rite Aid’s front entrance.

“The bus stop’s always been pretty gnarly,” said Willow Yanarella, manager at the Dawg Den, a business a few doors down from Rite Aid.

One Rite Aid employee said the vagrants come and go but speculated that their presence cuts into their sales in some way.

Drug deals happen in broad daylight on the block so often that it has come to be expected along the sidewalks, said Brian Wenza, shift leader at the Pagliacci Pizza adjacent to Rite Aid.

Sometimes, loiterers offer his customers drugs, Wenza said.

Police officers in cars, on bicycles and on foot patrol up and down the Ave all the time, said Mark Jamieson, Seattle Police Department detective.

“It’s a mix between responding and being reactive or being proactive where in-between calls we’re cruising up and down the Ave looking for criminal activity,” he said.

But the intimidation factor goes both ways.

“When you have anywhere from three to 10 people outside offering you drugs, it’s definitely intimidating,” Wenza said.

The line between businesses and these so-called “street kids” does not always separate two distinct groups. The U-District hosts a high concentration of service groups for homeless youth trying to get off the streets.

“Some of [the homeless youth] are just hanging out with their friends,” Hugel said.

Young-adult shelters like Rising Out Of The Shadows, more commonly known in the U-District as ROOTS, grew up around an already established homeless-youth population in the U-District. Their no drugs, no weapons policy draws a sharp contrast between these youth seeking help and the drug-dealing youth that local businesses encounter.

For those with legal drug prescriptions, pharmacy operations at Rite Aid will cease sometime during November. Then, pharmacy prescriptions will transfer to the U-District Safeway, said Flower, the Rite Aid spokesperson.

Property owners do not have a tenant to fill the 1-story, 14,420-square-foot space, said Jan Cooper at Panos Properties LLC.

Unless someone leases the old Cellophane Square property across the street from Rite Aid, that will make two empty storefronts along the same block.

“It may be vacant for a long time,” Hugel said.

Reach reporter Andrew Doughman at news@dailyuw.com.