Walgreens

[prudence]

Bturk and I are in the midsts of another poker game with one of America's corporate darlings...

I am looking for help from many of you with an aesthetically pleasing Walgreens in your towns. There must be a few out there. I did one in Frankfort, IL that is quite lovely, but the developers summarily rejected it. What else is out there...I want to bring acceptable options to the table before they walk away and we laugh.

Please, NO typical coroporate vernacular with a giant neon morter & pestle.

THanks in advance.

 

[Repo Man]

I have seen a few decent looking ones in SE Wisconsin. Pewaukee has one on Capitol that isn't spectacular, but doesn't have that neon tower feature.

I collected a few photos a while back when they wanted to come here.

 

[Repo Man]

This one is in Buffalo, NY (The last one was in Mokena, IL)

 

[pete-rock]

When I was working at the City of Chicago 2-3 years ago, Walgreens had as many as 15 sites they were looking at for new stores. Different planners were doing design review for sites in different locations, and Walgreens tried their best to play the planning department against itself.

Eventually the planning department came up with design guidelines specifically for Walgreens, and the quality of the buildings improved greatly. You could check out www.cityofchicago.org and get some info on the Walgreens design guidebook.

 

[Glomer]

I was going to do a similar post yesterday......If anyone also has similar pictures of good Walmart or Home Depot's I would appreciate them as well.

Both of these are looking at our city, and the problem is, we won't turn them down......so, I want to show them good things that they have done, and when they say they can't do this and that I'll be able to show them where they have.

Thanks

 

[Downtown]

Prudence - Good thread! Can I add on a request for Targets? We've got a super controversial (redundant, I know) proposal in the works here.

 

[OhioPlanner]

This is one step up off their normal store. Located in Columbus, Ohio

 

[Chet]

cowley - thanks for the pics. nice for a home depot, but the orange still kills me!

 

[OhioPlanner]

Here is a Lowe's store in Dublin, Ohio. This is supposed to be their top of the line store. They have put this on the cover of their corporate magazine. They have another similar one in South Carolina.

 

[Planderella]

I don't have a picture but the Walgreens at the corner of St. Charles Avenue and Felicity Street is one of the best I've seen in the New Orleans area. It was built to the sidewalk and has large windows in which you can actually see the street outside of the store. I remember the developers saying that it was their "Chicago" model. I can give you the name of a staff member to contact if you want more info.

 

[OhioPlanner]

I was on the board that recently approved a new Walgreens. It is supposed to start construction next year. It will be very attractive and quite a change for them. What's different?

The building is at the corner of two streets, against the street. The parking is on the side, not front
The entrance faces the street, not the parking lot
Smaller signage
Brick facade
Wrought iron fence with brick around the parking lot
Drive-thru is in the rear
Windows are recessed with pictures of the city in historic times inside.

 

[OhioPlanner]

This Eckerd is in Southlake Texas. Southlake has strict design standards. It's not perfect, but an improvement over the typical store, which will follow.

 

[OhioPlanner]

This is a typical store in Lake Jackson, Texas

 

[Chet]

I don't have a picture but the Walgreens at the corner of St. Charles Avenue and Felicity Street is one of the best I've seen in the New Orleans area. It was built to the sidewalk and has large windows in which you can actually see the street outside of the store. I remember the developers saying that it was their "Chicago" model. I can give you the name of a staff member to contact if you want more info.

We're a bit too 'suburban' to have the "street edge storefront" in the location they are proposing. I've seen several of their 'chicago models' though and we're looking in that vein.

 

[OhioPlanner]

Here is a Walmart in Columbus, Ohio.

Main difference is the color scheme isn't typical

 

[OhioPlanner]

This one is off Wal-marts website

 

[OhioPlanner]

This is one of the new Neighborhood Market Stores in Oklahoma City. Coming soon to a city near you, it's their latest way to grab more of your dollars. They will be located near the Super Walmarts to take advantage of the distribution network but will be the size of a grocery store.

 

[OhioPlanner]

This one is off Walmart's website too. I've never seen a brick Walmart before.

Sorry I don't have any target pictures. But I'd love to see some. Can you tell I collect pictures of big box stores?

 

[Planderella]

This one is off Walmart's website too. I've never seen a brick Walmart before.

Sorry I don't have any target pictures. But I'd love to see some. Can you tell I collect pictures of big box stores?

I have a couple of Target pictures in the Cyburbia Gallery but I'm not sure when it will be up and running again.

 

[Cardinal]

I finished putting together an awards presentation for the Wisconsin Downtown Action Council this past weekend. We are planning to give an award to a gas station that located in downtown Delafield, WI. This is a gas station?

 

[Cardinal]

Two story building, architecture similar to the neighbors, set up against the street with the pumps in the back - truly amazing.

 

[Chet]

Mike - thanks for the example from my hometown! For being only 30 minutes away, I dont get there often enough.

 

[Planderella]

That's pretty cool. How many death threats from the staff did it take for the developers to come up with a design like that?

 

[Chet]

That's pretty cool. How many death threats from the staff did it take for the developers to come up with a design like that?

Actually most of the downtown is owned by one man / firm. I'm assuming he has a hand in this. He is strongly into Williamsburg Colonial styles, and has basically re-faced existing buildings or razed and replaced them with buildings in that style. He has single handedly made a pissant town into an antique / craft mecca for southeastern Wisconsin. Most locals love him or hate him. I personally have alot of respect for the man and what he's done.

 

[Chet]

That's pretty cool. How many death threats from the staff did it take for the developers to come up with a design like that?

And here's a cool aerial shot I found:

 

[Repo Man]

Actually most of the downtown is owned by one man / firm. I'm assuming he has a hand in this. He is strongly into Williamsburg Colonial styles, and has basically re-faced existing buildings or razed and replaced them with buildings in that style. He has single handedly made a pissant town into an antique / craft mecca for southeastern Wisconsin. Most locals love him or hate him. I personally have alot of respect for the man and what he's done.

I think downtown Delafield is great. I frequent that Mobil station after trips to nearby Lapham Peak for cross-country skiing. I was completely in shock when I went there last year and I saw what they did with that station. I have never seen a gas station/ upscale convience store look so good.

My only complaint about the guy who doess all this stuff is that he closed Carpenter's Pub

 

[indigo]

An aside to the design question (btw, lots of good stuff suggested in the thread)

. . . From the original post, ". . . before they walk away . . ."

Do those who are proposing new locations for national chain retailers ever really walk away? I know that a lot of bad designs get passed on through and that sometimes this is, at least in part, because of fear that "they" will walk away and the community won't get its retailer (of whatever flavor). But has anyone actually seen that happen? Sometimes they might locate nearby across municipal boundaries, but how often do they just abandon plans to locate in the area?

 

[Chet]

Good point indigo. We did already tell them its our way or walk away. Another drug store isnt necessarily my idea of economic development.

 

[Repo Man]

We have had a few businesses simply walk away from here. We had an Outback Steakhouse that wanted to come here but decided not to because we wouldn't let them have a 30 foot high sign.

 

[Bullwinkle]

There are a lot of variables that go into site selection. I bet a lot of the time that the developer 'walks' isn't due to the community's design standards, but to changes in the market, other development costs, or something else completely unrelated to the review process.

In my small community, I know of one gas station/convenience store and one fast food restaurant that claim to have 'walked' in the past year because of our design standards. And the design standards are not very tough. I think they just rethought their business decision and blamed the City (or the realtor who was trying to do the deal blamed the City).

 

[Cardinal]

I have seen Walgreens (and others) turn down sites, but chiefly because of market demographics rather than site requirements. Only on rare occassions will a city requirement or site characteristic make a difference, and then it is not so much the signage or appearance of the building, but usually an issue such as visibility or access from the street.

If they use the "walk away" line, tell them "...but the new [CVS, Eckerd, or other competitor] agreed to all of our requirements..."

 

[prudence]

If they use the "walk away" line, tell them "...but the new [CVS, Eckerd, or other competitor] agreed to all of our requirements..."

Please understand that we DON"T CARE if they walk away. Development is ALWAYS on our terms, not theirs.

 

[Cardinal]

Right. My intent was to throw a scare into them. Do it our way or your competitor will.

 

[Lee Nellis]

No pics I can post (I don't think most of you realize how hard it is for people who are on rickety old rural phone lines to participate in this forum!), but the best looking Home Despot around is, as usual in Fort Collins, CO. There are better than average looking Wal-Marts in Durango and Bozeman. The more I think about it, however, the more I wonder if making these things look better is a worthy enterprise? Maybe they should look exactly like what they are … I would much rather have them pay living wages and benefits than have them put in more trees.

 

[Dan]

the best looking Home Despot around is, as usual in Fort Collins, CO.

Home Depot, Fort Collins

 

[Dan]

Wal-Mart, Fort Collins, Colorado

 

[BKM]

Rant

Lee, you have a good point about whether trees are more important than jobs.

Unfortunately, I see this a lot in our profession, at least among self-styled reformers or "progressives" (whatever that means). We really can't "change the world." We can't "force" new housing to "look as good" (in our eyes, at least) as the traditional neighborhoods, and we certainly can't force the homebuilding industry to return to the days of small regional builders that "do good work." And, we can't stop the consolidation of business into larger and fwer national chains (Generica).

So instead, we worry about making sure the big box store has nicer materials and a few slowly strangling tress in the parking lot. On housing, the trim is a little nicer and the three car garages have fancy little "lites" and little jogs, but there are still 300 houses all built at one time with non-union labor and no way to walk or bicycle to anything except other clusters of "lifestyle themed" housing.

The fancied up stuff is nicer. But, really great architecture really comes about only when there is someone like that guy in Delafield who CARES. The corporate folks at Walgreens and Walmart only care about pushing their latest product through buildings designed by marketing and logistics "experts." We can only chip away at the edges.

God, am I cranky.