The Walgreens store in St. Louis Centre will close August 15, leaving downtown St. Louis without a drug store. Many businesses downtown rely on Walgreens for office supplies (it is really the only source of such downtown) and photo development while shoppers within downtown and on the near north side depend on this store for medicine.
There are no plans for relocation of the store, although there should be.
I suppose that I love home furnishing stores, but I would rather have office supply and drug stores downtown. Myself and many others who work and shop downtown need the basics covered here -- otherwise, what advantage is there to having an office downtown?
How many other US cities of comparable size do not have a large downtown drug store?
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
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I also noticed their sign to this effect today. Also the pharmacy is closing even sooner than the rest of the store - this Friday, August 4th. The nearest stores to which they direct folks are Lindell @ Whittier and S. Broadway @ Gasconade.
At best, either store is a 20-minute bus ride from downtown each way.
Also today I noticed the Wendy's at 6th and Chestnut closed. The sign on the door indicates something about a lawsuit by the landlord.
Both the STL Centre Walgreens and the Kiener Plaza Wendy's were places I frequented, and places that were very busy at lunch hour and sometimes other times too.
Hopefully Walgreens or another pharmacy will consider a new location in DT STL. DT Chicago, of course, has a plethora.
Although I've never been to the St. Louis Centre Walgreens I see the need for such a store. It would have been nice had they managed to open a new street-level store somewhere East of Tucker just in time.
I'm afraid many loft developers might not want to lease to Walgreens because it doesn't project an upscale image to help them sell/rent their units. Another problem may simply be a big enough space for their store as well as appropriate docking area.
As for office supplies, Kinko's and Washington Ave Post each have a decent selection of the basics.
If only they sold gelato...
There is a dire need for something like a Walgreens downtown. I wonder if Walgreens is holding out for a location with a large parking lot and a drive-thru.
Since the Walgreens in the Century closed, and I found the pharmacy at the St. Louis Centre Walgreens to be less than helpful, I turned to the Medicine Shoppe in the Jefferson Arms for my prescriptions. Medicine Shoppe closed that store and moved to Hampton Ave. They deliver to downtown for free, but only on weekday afternoons.
There's just something wrong with a downtown when a business like that Walgreens, with such a lousy location on the 3rd floor of a nearly deserted mall, didn't have any competition.
Not to fear, for our fine Mayor paved (or bulldozed) the way for a "new" location of Walgreen's in the garage-mahal. I'm sure Slay and his gang blame those Century-huggers for delaying his pet project and would say, "see, you'd have a new Walgreen's by now, if you hadn't fought me."
I just want to amplify urban review's recommendation of the Washington Ave Post for office supplies. I purchase office supplies for my company all the time from there. They also have a full range of printing and shipping services, as well as a great Cafe Americano to boot (let's see walgreens top that!) I highly recommend anyone needing business/office services to check them out:
Washington Ave Post
1312 Washington Ave
314-588-0545
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