Walgreens Expected to Open in July

 

DEERFIELD, ILLINOIS - Friday, January 11, 2008 - Walgreens Corporate Offices reported today that the Ironwood Walgreens Store should be open for business by mid-summer.

According to Carol Hively, corporate spokeswoman for Walgreens, "We plan to open the Walgreens Store being constructed on the corner of Lake and Highway-2 (Cloverland Drive) in Ironwood this summer. We can't pin it down much more than mid-summer, maybe July. Weather and other factors can impact the time frame, but, we're looking at mid-summer."

She went on to say, "The square footage of the building will be 13,650 square feet. And the store will have a drive-thru pharmacy window. The store will also have, as our other stores do, a photo finishing department. So there will be one-hour photo service as well as digital photo service. You can download your photos from home, from your home computer, and pick up the prints at the local Walgreens or send them across the country if you want, to be picked up at a Walgreen's there. We'll also have passport photos. There's a number of items you can order, merchandise with photos printed on them."

I asked Ms. Hively why Walgreens chose to build a store in Ironwood. She responded, "We've been growing very rapidly. We open a new store about every sixteen hours. So, what we are finding is that the demand for prescription drugs is increasing very dramatically. So, we're getting stores in place not only to meet the current demand, but also the growing future demand for prescriptions drugs. So what we're looking for in our research, we look at communities where we expect the demand for prescription drugs to increase. Maybe it's the age of the population or a growing population that attracts our interest. Or maybe there is a need for more pharmacy services in the community. It could be a number of things – if there is senior housing in an area or medical services – something that would create a demand for prescriptions to be filled."

"Our stores very typically have very extensive pharmacy services, so, what we would hope is that people who may not be familiar with Walgreens would be welcome, and come to our stores and see at the new store all the pharmacy services that it has to offer."

Jim Albert