THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 21, 1996 TAG: 9606190133
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 123 lines
AT LEAST SIX big, new drugstores, half of them Revco and half Rite Aid, are scheduled to open in Portsmouth in the next six to eight months.
But the net gain in drugstores may be only one. The other new stores will replace smaller, existing facilities.
The face-off expansion of the two chains in Portsmouth follows the collapse in April of a $1.8 billion buyout of Revco Inc. by Rite Aid Corp., already the nation's largest drugstore chain.
Three large, free-standing buildings are under construction. Two more are in the works.
Revco already has expanded at Rodman's Corner, moving from an existing store to the next-door space once occupied by Earle's supermarket. The new store at 3116 High St. covers 15,500 square feet.
``That's a large store for us,'' Anita Fenrich of the Revco public relations staff in Twinsburg, Ohio, said. ``It's what we call a convenience store, and it carries many more items than the old store stocked.''
Among those items are an increasing array of foodstuffs. The recently expanded store on High Street has several shelves of food, including cereal, canned soup, coffee, tea and many other items. In addition, a dairy case contains not only milk and juice but also cheese and other refrigerated goods.
More space also is devoted to cosmetics and to sundry products.
Industry publications say that drugstores rely on products other than drugs to increase their profits, just as grocery stores rely on products other than edibles to increase their income. Both food and drug stores are competing for the same dollars on many other items, such as cleaning materials and patent medicines.
In years gone by, drugstores located adjacent to food stores to capitalize on the customer traffic. Now the trend is to move away from the supermarkets to free-standing buildings to capture more of the ``convenience'' market trade by giving shoppers easy access to items they most often need.
``All retail is changing,'' Portsmouth Planning Director Jim Gildea said. ``The stores want to be more things to more people.''
In addition to new retailing philosophies, another incentive for construction and expansion of drugstores is the aging population.
``America's getting older,'' Rite Aid spokesperson Sarah Datz said. ``People are using more prescription drugs.''
While the new construction does not increase the number of businesses by much, it does enlarge the city's tax base to the extent that the city may collect more taxes from the drugstore operations than from previous uses of the land.
Putting a price tag on the construction is not easy since the companies do not want to reveal the numbers; however, the city's Economic Development Department has said that a proposed new Rite Aid store on London Boulevard will cost about $1 million.
The locations and the site work required are factors in the cost.
In some cases, the buildings are being constructed on vacant parcels within strip shopping centers. In others, buildings are being torn down and other businesses lost.
The first of the new buildings to open will be a Revco. The store now located on the southeast corner of George Washington Highway and Victory Boulevard will move to a free-standing building near the same intersection. The move should take place next month, Fenrich said.
That new building was constructed on an out-parcel on the old Williams Court site near the city line, where a Rack and Sack grocery store is the major tenant in a strip shopping center near the building.
A third new Revco will be built on Airline Boulevard near Greenwood Drive.
Rite Aid has a new center under constructionat at Portsmouth Boulevard and Hodges Ferry Road. The existing store in Elmhurst Square will move across the street, Datz said.
The new store will cover almost 11,000 square feet and will feature a drive-through pharmacy window. The store will be typical of Rite Aid's new construction across the country.
The store is being built on a site that was cleared for the new construction. Destroyed were the building formerly occupied by Bogie's and Tavern on the Green and another former 7-Eleven store most recently occupied by Mr. T's Pizza.
The city already has in hand plans for a new Rite Aid store, also with a drive-through window, on a city block on London Boulevard between Elm Avenue and Armstrong Street. This new building will replace the existing store in London Plaza nearby.
The building on that site most recently housed Givens and Son bicycles and motorcycles, and it will be razed to make way for the construction. Givens has moved all of its operations out of Portsmouth to its second facility on Military Highway in Chesapeake.
A third new Rite Aid will be built on High Street near Academy Crossing. Datz said from the company's Camp Hill, Pa., offices that although construction has not begun, the store is scheduled to open in January.
The Churchland Rite Aid will be the only additional store in the bunch, increasing the Rite Aid locations from three to four within the city. In addition to the store at Elmhurst Square and London Plaza, Rite Aid has another store on Portsmouth Boulevard near Deep Creek Boulevard.
David Clarke, director of real estate in Virginia for Rite Aid, said the new free-standing stores are the chain's new prototype ``with all the bells and whistles.''
Clarke said the store on High Street will be Rite Aid's only location in Churchland at the time.
``We closed a smaller store in that vicinity some time ago,'' he said.
Clarke said he expects the company to expand more in the area.
``We're always looking,'' he said.
Revco has a total of six stores in Portsmouth, including the three that will be upgraded. Others are in the Churchland Shopping Center, in the 6000 block of Portsmouth Boulevard and downtown in the 300 block of High Street.
Revco, which emerged from a reorganization in federal bankruptcy court in 1992 with a plan to double business, is second to Rite Aid in size.
During discussions of the aborted buyout, Rite Aid had announced it would close some 300 stores nationwide. Some of those could have been in Portsmouth and other Hampton Roads cities, where Revco and Rite Aid operate within blocks of each other.
The deal, which had been pending since last November, was abandoned after the Federal Trade Commission threatened to sue to block the merger. The FTC had said that the merger probably would create higher prescription prices in Virginia and North Carolina by eliminating competition. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo on cover
Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
The first of three new Rite Aid pharmacies is under construction on
Hodges Ferry Road at Portsmouth Boulevard.
Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
The first of three new Rite Aid pharmacies is under construction at
Hodges Ferry Road and Portsmouth Boulevard. by CNB