Why the Old Rite Aid in Alamo Plaza Is Becoming a Gym, Not Another Store

Remodeling crews have been working behind the windows at 130 Alamo Plaza, the Rite Aid unit that sat empty for more than a year in downtown Alamo's largest shopping center. The new tenant isn't a store. It's a gym, and a fairly specific kind of gym.

Vim + Vigor Fitness plans to open its first "Reserve Club" in the former Rite Aid this December. DanvilleSanRamon.com reported that remodeling crews were already working inside in early September. The choice fits what Alamo Plaza has been turning into for years: the place you stop for groceries, mail, a prescription and a workout. Most of the shopping happens in other towns.

The Anchor That Left Quietly

Rite Aid's exit from Alamo was part of the company's nationwide bankruptcy. DanvilleSanRamon.com reported in August 2025 that the store was scheduled to close August 24, 2025. Pharmacy service had already ended July 28, and prescriptions moved to the CVS at 3158 Danville Blvd.

So the pharmacy role never really left downtown. It moved across the street, and CVS became downtown Alamo's one remaining pharmacy. That left the plaza with one of its anchor units empty, a large box in a prominent spot whose old job was already being done nearby. By the time the Vim + Vigor announcement arrived, the space had been vacant for just over a year.

Four Units, One Pattern

The Reserve Club won't be the plaza's first fitness tenant. It won't even be the second. Here's what the September reporting laid out, unit by unit:

24 Hour Fitness closed its 140F club during the COVID-19 pandemic. Six years later, a larger fitness operator is moving into an even more visible unit two doors down. The demand that kept a big-box gym here for years never went away. It spread out among boutique studios, and now it's returning to a single large space.

Fitness isn't the only service business filling in around it. In its October 2025 Downtown Series, the Pleasanton Weekly reported that salons, medspas, fitness studios and doctors' offices "abound throughout the plaza and the surrounding shopping centers," alongside Safeway, the post office and a number of casual restaurants.

What the Owner Says the Center Is For

EDENS bought Alamo Plaza in 2022. Its own property page for the center calls it a grocery-anchored destination with more than 200,000 square feet of "retail, dining, wellness, and service offerings," anchored by Safeway. Wellness is one of the four words the owner uses to describe the place. That makes a gym in the old Rite Aid a fit with the center's stated direction more than a fallback.

The same page credits the "Tunnel of Love / Welcome to Beautiful Alamo, California" murals to ABG Art Group, an Oakland creative collective. The murals were part of EDENS' revitalization work after the purchase.

The bigger reason a service-heavy mix suits this plaza comes from Contra Costa County Supervisor Candace Andersen, whose District 2 includes Alamo. She told the Pleasanton Weekly that downtown Alamo is "almost like a little city, but not." She also noted that Alamo residents generally go to Danville and Walnut Creek for shopping, recreation and entertainment. If shopping trips already go to the neighboring towns, the plaza's strength is the stuff that doesn't travel well: the grocery run, the post office, the workout before work.

The same reporting also noted more vacancies at the shopping center in recent years, with the Rite Aid unit the most visible. Filling that unit with a membership business gives the plaza a reason for people to come back several times a week, all year.

What the Reserve Club Says It Will Offer

Vim + Vigor calls the Alamo location "the first-ever Vim + Vigor Fitness Reserve Club, our most elevated fitness experience." The company's representatives did not respond to DanvilleSanRamon.com's interview request. Most of what's public about the club comes from Vim + Vigor's Alamo location page. It says "Opening December 2026!" and lists a pre-enrollment office opening November 2.

According to that page, the club will include:

• Strength and cardio equipment from Panatta Sport, Arsenal Strength, Torque Fitness, Life Fitness, Matrix, Hammer Strength and American Barbell
• A recovery area the company calls Revive Recovery, with a Himalayan salt sauna, red light therapy, compression boots and massage chairs
• Personal training

The recovery list is the part that matches the rest of the plaza best. Saunas and red light therapy sit closer to the medspa end of the wellness business than to a standard weight room, so the club overlaps with what the center's service tenants already sell.

Vim + Vigor isn't new to the Tri-Valley either. Its locations directory describes the clubs as independently owned and operated. Alamo is listed as upcoming, alongside existing clubs in Pleasanton, Concord, Campbell, San Jose Meridian and several cities in Southern California and Nevada.

Across Danville Boulevard, the Oak Gets Its Lights

The Reserve Club's December opening window is also the month of downtown Alamo's biggest yearly gathering, the Rotary Club of Alamo's Tree Lighting at Andrew H. Young Park, at the corner of Danville Boulevard and Jackson Way.

The event centers on the park's heritage oak. A plaque at the base of the tree honors Andrew H. Young, a World War II veteran, past president of the Contra Costa Historical Society and longtime civic leader who died in 2000. The Rotary Club of Alamo describes the ceremony as an annual tradition with Santa, carolers from local schools, hot cocoa and seasonal treats from local businesses.

The lights are paid for in part through the same county arrangement that funds much of Alamo's park life. A Contra Costa County board order on the November 3, 2026 consent agenda would pay $2,300 from County Service Area R-7 funds to the Alamo Rotary Foundation for holiday lights at the park. The Alamo Municipal Advisory Council reviewed the contribution on October 6. The order allows lights to go up on or after November 1 and requires them down by January 18, 2027. That gives the oak about eleven weeks of holiday lighting.

The county order places the 2026 festival in early December, from 4 to 6 p.m. Its listed day and date don't match the 2026 calendar, though, so check the exact day with the Rotary Club of Alamo before you plan your evening around it.

A December Loop Around the Intersection

Downtown Alamo is compact: two blocks along Danville Boulevard on either side of Stone Valley Road. That makes it easy to cover on foot after the lights go on.

Start at EJ Phair Alehouse and Pub in Alamo Plaza. It opened there in 2019 as the brewery's third location and is now its only one, run by co-owner Becky Wynn with EJ Phair, an Alamo resident. In the Pleasanton Weekly's Downtown Series, Wynn said the goal was to be "like 'Cheers,' where you come here and you know all the bartenders." The menu runs from German dishes and weekly specials to burgers and fries.

From there, cross to the oak at Andrew H. Young Park. Then walk south on Danville Boulevard to 3194 Danville Blvd, a shoe repair shop in the old post office building. The life-sized horse sculpture on top is "Easy Keeper," put there by the late John Bellandi, a rancher who ran Alamo Hay and Grain. He bought it in 1980 for $900 and named it for how little upkeep it needed compared with his dozen-plus live horses.

At Danville Boulevard and Orchard Court, outside On Track Learning at 3150 Danville Blvd, the stump of an old-growth redwood that fell in 2024 now carries chainsaw art. It honors the site's former owner, Robert Swedberg.

On the way back north, the old Rite Aid at 130 Alamo Plaza should look different from last December. Vim + Vigor's page lists a December 2026 opening for the Reserve Club, and BODYROK and The Iron House are a short walk away.

If you own near downtown Alamo and want to know how changes like a new anchor tenant at Alamo Plaza show up in your home's value, Sonali Sells can walk you through it with local comparisons and no pressure. Request a Free Home Valuation whenever it suits you.