Hero Zone: Where Social VR Meets Real-World Revenue -
Sandbox VR opens its first North Carolina venue on August 14. The site sits at the corner of West Fourth and Trade streets in downtown Winston-Salem. The building was a CVS until 2024. The venue spans 6,000 square feet. It includes a bar, a private party room, and four VR rooms. Each room takes a group of up to six guests in headsets, haptic vests, and motion sensors. Sandbox VR is in more than 90 locations worldwide. The building it took is a former drugstore. The United States has thousands more of those standing empty.
Rite Aid had about 1,245 stores when it filed for Chapter 11 a second time in May 2025. By early October every one of them had closed, after 63 years of trading. CVS Health told investors in November 2021 it would close 900 stores between 2022 and 2024. That was roughly 9 per cent of the nearly 10,000 US stores it had at the time. Its annual report filed in February 2025 added 271 more closures for that year under an enterprise-wide restructuring plan. Walgreens Boots Alliance said on its Q4 fiscal 2024 earnings call that it would close 1,200 US stores over three years, starting with 500 in 2025. Chief executive Tim Wentworth put the profitable portion of the estate at 6,000 of more than 8,000 stores.
The commercial real-estate data firm LightBox analysed pharmacy downsizing in May 2025. It put the typical drugstore at between 10,000 and 15,000 square feet. It noted that the layout does not always suit the tenants now shopping for space. LightBox names grocers, wine and spirits retailers and healthcare and service businesses as the tenants taking those boxes.
“Real estate leases are the biggest risk an immersive venue faces, especially if they’re asking for a personal guarantee. The surplus of drugstore real estate located on prime retail corners with plentiful parking represents a huge opportunity for operators. But it won’t last forever,” said Bob Cooney, a VR consultant and executive director of LEXRA, the trade association for location-based XR, who began his career operating immersive location-based entertainment in 1989. Cooney publishes The VR Collective.
A pharmacy chain wanted the corner of Fourth and Trade for the same reason a venue operator wants it. Freestanding building, hard corner, parking already poured, visible from the road, zoned for retail, wired and plumbed for a business that ran seven days a week. A drugstore was built to be found by people who were not looking for it.
Sandbox VR took 6,000 square feet of a box that LightBox’s range says was probably larger. So either the Winston-Salem unit sat at the small end, or the space was subdivided.
Zero Latency’s State of Location-Based VR 2026, a survey of 2,386 adults in the United States, Canada, Australia, France and Spain, found that 78 per cent prefer a venue offering VR alongside other attractions, with 40 per cent wanting more VR experiences and 38 per cent wanting activities such as bowling or mini golf. “Zero Latency just published a research report showing that 78% of people want additional attractions with their VR, with more than half of them desiring multiple VR experiences in one venue,” Cooney said. “With the average vacant drugstore in excess of 10,000 square feet, it leaves plenty of room for multiple attractions.”
Four rooms at up to six guests puts 24 people playing at once. They run concurrently rather than as one batch. Venues in this format book on a 45 to 60 minute cadence. A 25 minute game carries a briefing, kitting into vests and headsets, the highlight video at the end and a reset before the next group walks in. Four rooms turning on that cadence gives 24 to 32 guests an hour at full occupancy. Every one of those guests can buy a drink at the bar on the way out.
Sandbox VR is working with Madison Bennett Corporation on the Winston-Salem venue. “There’s so much happening downtown, and we think Sandbox VR is a great addition to the restaurants, nightlife and entertainment that already make it such a fun place to spend time,” said Arthur Hengler, the franchise owner.
Winston-Salem is the second Sandbox VR lease in six weeks. In July the company signed a 10-year lease in Times Square, at Manhattan rents. This site takes the opposite end of the same market: a vacated drugstore box on a downtown corner. Both fit the pattern this site described on 30 June, that LBE is now a primary tenant category in retail real estate.
For an operator priced out of the sites it wanted, the closed CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid addresses in a trade area are inventory a broker can pull. Clear height and column spacing are the two things that kill these deals. The site’s directory of location-based VR experiences lists what could fill the rest of a 10,000 to 15,000 square foot box. LEXRA members compare site criteria and landlord terms at lexra.org.
Where is the new Sandbox VR in Winston-Salem? At the corner of West Fourth and Trade streets in downtown Winston-Salem, in a building that operated as a CVS until 2024. It opens August 14 2026.
How big is the venue and what is in it? 6,000 square feet, with a bar, a private party room and four VR rooms. Each room takes a group of up to six guests, who wear headsets, haptic vests and motion sensors.
How many guests an hour can a four-room venue like this handle? Between 24 and 32 at full occupancy. Venues in this format book on a 45 to 60 minute cadence, because a 25 minute game carries a briefing, kitting up, a highlight video and a reset around it. Four rooms turning on that cadence, at six guests a room, is where the range comes from.
How many drugstores have closed in the United States? Rite Aid closed its remaining stores in October 2025, having had about 1,245 at its May 2025 Chapter 11 filing. CVS Health announced 900 closures for 2022 to 2024 and a further 271 for 2025 in its February 2025 annual report. Walgreens Boots Alliance announced 1,200 US closures over three years in October 2024.
Is drugstore real estate suitable for a VR venue? Often, with checks. The buildings are typically 10,000 to 15,000 square feet, freestanding, parked and zoned for retail, which suits a multi-room format. Clear height, column spacing and sightlines decide each site.
How many Sandbox VR locations are there? More than 90 across five continents and 12 countries, per the company’s August 2026 release, which also reports 6 million lifetime tickets and $300 million in lifetime sales.
