Rite Aid gives former pharmacy building to Tarentum church

Cathy Blythe was driving past the shuttered Rite Aid on Corbet Street in Tarentum when, she says, God spoke to her.

He told her to call the real estate agent selling the building.

Blythe took over as pastor of Abundant Joy Fellowship in Tarentum after her husband, Greg Blythe, died a year ago. He had wanted to open a community center in Tarentum.

Blythe was puzzled. She didn’t have the money to buy the building. But, she says, God told her Rite Aid would give her the building.

But she sent a letter, and that’s exactly what happened.

“We didn’t pay any money for it at all,” she said.

A Rite Aid spokesman confirmed that the company donated the three-story, 35,000-square-foot building to the church.

The property has an assessed value of just over $752,000, according to Allegheny County. JC Penney Properties bought it in 1987 for $240,000; it was transferred to Thrift Drug in 2004 for $10, according to the county’s real estate website.

Rite Aid closed its pharmacy on the building’s first floor facing Corbet Street in March 2018. It had been listed for $100,000.

Blythe said the Realtor, Ronald Tarquinio, owner and president of Tarquincore on Pittsburgh’s South Side, showed her the building and asked how much she’d be able to put down. When she said nothing, and that God had told her the company would give her the building, he told her that wouldn’t happen.

Tarquinio said he’s never seen something like this happen before.

“I was delighted, absolutely delighted,” he said. “It was the right thing to do, and they did it. I take my hat off to Rite Aid.”

Tarquinio said there had been “tons of interest” from people interested in buying the building. But there were challenges with meeting current building codes, which he would not detail, and a lack of parking.

“Normally with buildings that old the building, itself, becomes an issue,” he said. “That’s not the case here. It’s in pretty good shape.”

Blythe said the building will need a new roof.

She envisions many things happening and being done in the building to help people.

“We want the building to be used for the community,” she said. “It would benefit everyone in the community. That was part of my husband’s vision.”

The first thing she mentions is a feeding program, through which many churches would take turns preparing meals for needy people.

In a kitchen, she said people can be shown how to prepare food and preserve fruits and vegetables.

It would be an extension of Tarentum’s community garden, which Greg Blythe helped create and bears his name.

She also wants to use it as a venue to bring arts into the community.

“The arts bring healing into people’s lives, for children especially,” she said. “It’s a really good way to bring healing into body, soul and spirit.”

There’s also space for meeting and training rooms, offices and a large Christian library.

The building originally had been an opera house. Blythe said all that remains of that history is the original wooden floor on the third floor. She’d like to get the building designated as an historic landmark.

Just like acquiring the building, itself, Blythe isn’t worried about getting the money for the roof or any other work.

“God told me everything we need will be taken care of,” she said.