Rally House plans to open its first Center City store
The Rittenhouse store would be the sports apparel chain's third Philadelphia location.
It’s your city. It’s your (Ritten)house. It’s your Rally House.
The sports apparel store with the earworm of a jingle plans to open its first Center City location in a former Rite Aid near Rittenhouse Square.
The Kansas-based chain has asked the city’s art commission for approval to put up signage outside the nearly 13,000-foot storefront at 17th and Chestnut Streets, according to its application, which is set to be reviewed at a Wednesday meeting. Rally House spokespeople did not return requests for comment Tuesday.
The company’s application was first reported Monday by the Philadelphia Business Journal.
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The storefront is situated in the historic Provident Trust Co. building, the upper floors of which are home to the Club Quarters Hotel.
The ground-floor retail space was occupied by a Rite Aid until January 2024, when the Chestnut Street store became yet another casualty of the Philly-based chain’s financial struggles. Rite Aid closed all its stores over the summer amid its second bankruptcy in less than two years.
Since the Rittenhouse Rite Aid closed, Spirit Halloween has occupied the storefront in the months leading up to Halloween.
The building is owned by a partnership registered to Philadelphia-based developer Neal Rodin, according to property records. Rodin did not return requests for comment Tuesday.
Rally House already has about two dozen locations in the Philadelphia region, but the vast majority of them are in the suburbs. It has only two city locations, one on Temple’s campus and another in West Philadelphia near Drexel and Penn.
If Rally House opens at 17th and Chestnut, it would bring continued momentum to the retail corridor around Rittenhouse Square, which has recently welcomed a slew of new businesses, including the luxury women’s fashion company Aritzia and North America’s first Nike Jordan World of Flight store.
It would also mark the latest example of how zombie Rite Aids can be resurrected.
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Over the past three years, more than 170 Rite Aids have shuttered across the Philadelphia region, with dozens of stores closing even before the chain announced it was going out of business.
Like the Rittenhouse space, former Rite Aids are often 8,000 to 16,000 square feet, which is not ideal for many potential tenants, experts say. But some of these pharmacy shells have found new life as small grocers, discount stores, and medical offices.
Soon, sports apparel store may be added to that list.