IRONWOOD, MI - Friday, May 30, 2008 - The new Walgreens is coming along nicely. Signage has been installed and construction crews began pouring the sidewalks and walkways.

"We're still on schedule to open the Ironwood Walgreens on the corner of Lake Road and East Cloverland Drive in July 2008." said Carol Hively. Walgreens Corporate Spokeswoman, "The store will be 13,650 square feet and will have a drive-thru pharmacy window. We expect to employ about 25 people."

In addition to drive-thru service, the new Walgreens will offer extensive pharmacy services, including a variety of options to refill medications. Touch-tone service allows a patient to enter their prescription number and request a time for a refill by touch-tone without having to speak directly to pharmacy staff. Patients may also arrange for automated refills and receive e-mail reminders of refill status.

The store will offer one-hour photo processing, passport photos and digital photo services. Customers can share photos with family and friends across the country when they upload digital pictures from their home computer for pick-up at any Walgreens nationwide.

The cosmetics department will feature full-time beauty advisors trained to help customers select cosmetics that are right for them.

Walgreens reached $53.8 billion in sales during fiscal 2007, making it the nation's largest drugstore chain and seventh largest retailer. The company operates 6,271 drugstores in 49 states and Puerto Rico.

A typical Walgreens store is 14,500 to 14,800 square feet, which includes 11,000 square feet of sales area, and carries more than 25,000 consumable items and necessities. Each unit employs 25 to 30 people and averages $8.9 million in annual sales. Nationwide, Walgreens drugstores serve 5 million customers daily. 2007 marked the company's 33rd consecutive year of record sales and earnings. Fortune magazine ranks Walgreens as the 44th largest company in America.

During the past five years, 2,394 Walgreens were opened. More than 80 percent of the chain is freestanding and 5,300 stores offer drive-thru prescription service. Also, nearly 6,000 offer one-hour photofinishing and more than 1,600 are open 24 hours, more than all the other drugstore chains combined. Today, about half of the company's stores are less than six years old. Intercom Plus, Walgreens advanced pharmacy system, allows the pharmacist to spend more time counseling patients on their medicines. Other patient benefits include tax/insurance records and patient profiles. Intercom Plus also permits "prescription transferability" -- so you can get refills at Walgreens stores other than the one where you first obtained your medication, even if it's in another state.

Through www.walgreens.com, customers can order prescription refills and non-prescription items, access their personal prescription profile and research health information.

In April 2002, Walgreens became the first drugstore chain to offer prescription labels in multiple languages chainwide. Labels can be printed in one of 14 languages and patients can also speak to a pharmacist in their native language by phone. The service is available in the same 14 languages offered for prescription labels. The company also offers large-print prescription instructions chainwide.