A vacant Rite Aid in Victorville is getting a new tenant, with Dollar Tree moving into the empty storefront. The discount chain is set to stock the space with houseware, seasonal items, candy, food, toys, and health and beauty products, giving the shuttered pharmacy site a fresh retail identity.
The Victorville Daily Press reported plans to convert the shuttered Rite Aid into a Dollar Tree. The vacant storefront is slated to become a new location for the discount retailer.
The same report describes Dollar Tree's typical product mix, which includes houseware, seasonal merchandise, candy, food, toys, and health and beauty items — the kind of everyday goods that have made the chain a familiar fixture in communities across the region.
The vacancy reflects a wider upheaval in the drugstore business: Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy again in May 2025 and said it would seek to sell substantially all its assets. The process involved selling prescription files and store locations as the chain wound down operations, turning former pharmacies into potential sites for other kinds of retail. The Victorville plan would give this storefront a general-merchandise role rather than restore its former pharmacy function, based on the store’s announced Dollar Tree product mix. The Associated Press reported on Rite Aid’s second bankruptcy filing.
Filling Vacant Retail Spaces
The closures also raised concerns about access to pharmacy services across California. In August 2024, the state attorney general said more than 100 Rite Aid stores had closed statewide during the company’s earlier bankruptcy and identified the risk of “pharmacy deserts,” particularly for people who depend on nearby pharmacies for medication and care. That statewide context underscores why converting a former pharmacy is more than a change in storefront signage, even as the proposed Dollar Tree would bring a different kind of retail service. The California Attorney General’s announcement detailed the closures and access concerns.
The Victorville conversion is one example of a business moving into a vacant retail space. Other businesses are also filling vacant locations.
What Shoppers Can Expect
Dollar Tree’s expansion makes the Victorville plan part of a broader store-growth strategy. The company reported opening 402 Dollar Tree stores in fiscal 2025, which ended Jan. 31, 2026, and finished that year with 9,282 stores. Those figures show the chain adding locations even as former drugstore sites become available, though the company’s totals do not establish whether this Victorville project is counted among those openings. Dollar Tree’s full-year results give its store-opening and year-end totals.
For now, what's confirmed is the basic shape of the deal: a formerly vacant Rite Aid storefront in Victorville is being turned into a Dollar Tree, bringing back a retail presence to a vacant space. Shoppers can expect the store to carry Dollar Tree's usual lineup of low-cost household items, food, toys, and health and beauty products once the transition is complete.
