November 11, 2009

CVS Update from Councilor Rosen

Here's information regarding the CVS.

I talked to CVS' Director of Real Estate for this region. She said that, with the acquisition last year by CVS of the over 500 California based Long Drug Stores for $3 billion, CVS now has over 7000 stores to manage in the USA.

CVS intends to open the new Park Avenue (at May St.) store on January 24, 2010. Thats more than two months away for a store that appears to have been completed a few months ago.

This new CVS store will be replacing the small store doing business now on Park Avenue near Pleasant St. At first I was told that there might be some legal issue with the lease at the small store, issues that require CVS to keep that store open for so many months more before a new store can replace it within such close proximity. Perhaps the landlord receives more rent if the store's sale figures reach a certain plateau. She said if that's the case, the lease could have a clause in it to protect the landlord from decreasing sales caused by the actions (closing) of this CVS. This issue was one that she was not completely sure of.

She also suggested that, with the acquisition of Longs stores, their limited number of setup teams have been working hard on those transitions and probably haven't been available to the Worcester and other new stores around the country. In scheduling Worcester's new Park Avenue store for setup and opening, they also didn't want to disrupt the Christmas and Hanukkah shopping season at the present small store.

I asked her why the word "Pharmacy" is covered on the new store. She said that laws provide that a pharmacy can't be advertised at any new store until the MA Board of Pharmacy has officially licensed a pharmacy to operate at that location. That won't happen until much closer to the grand opening in January.

Gary

2 comments:

Jahn said...

Ramdon thots:

I believe RE taxes are determined based on FMV of the real property on Jan 1st.

E.g. RE tax amts for the city current fiscal yr. billing peroid ended June 30, 2010 ( a.k.a. Fiscal year 2010) are based on values determined as of Jan 1st, 2009.

I do not know about property taxes on personal property such as inventory, equipment, fixtures,, etc. I wonder why Duddie is advertising an inventory moving sale for inventory on Park Ave that will end on Dec 31st. Maybe b/c Auburn personal property taxes are less than Worcesters?

If this CVS is a lease deal the land owner is paying taxes on the value of the land w/o re: to store being opened or closed.

Query..under the city (state?) ordinance adopoted after Cold Storage fire, I have to wonder if a strict reading of the law says that place s/b plywooded up..............or maybe not b/c occupancy permit not yet granted therefore still considered under constr.????

I wonder why the old Dartmouth St school is not baorded up . It's been empty now since June of 2008 or was June of 2007? Answer, maybe the city is exepmt from the "board up ordinance." IS Mill Swan also M.T. , too?

My gut tells me that Buying 500 more stores in Calif. is a weak excuse. I have heard they have crews that open new stores..........but often they hire local help on a temporary basis to work alongside CVS store opening crew. Thats what I heard about a store in clinton that also is opened but last I knew (a few months ago) still had pharamcy sign covered...or was that the new walgreens in Clinton.

Anyone think that maybe the nations unknown health care laws/ situation has caused some of these companies to re think their expansion plans. CVS & Walgreens must be planning on lotsa baby boomers being addicted to Prozac & ZoLoft as they sit around waiting their ultimate demise.

I wonder if these drug stores survey a cmmuinity to see how many small school buses they have running around and then base their new sites on that statistic [g].

Since when does a pharmacy operation in that part of the city require a sign of an sort [g].

Wonder how many local pharmacies that store will knock off the block??

T-Traveler said...

this sounds like old info