Let the Walgreens versus CVS battle in STL begin!



-----------------------------------------------------------



HHIA ’08, September Meeting



Alderman Fred Heitert, 12th Ward Update



· Boulevard Heights: Joint Venture Housing Development Program. 125 housing units will be built, roughly 40 Single Family, 40 Townhouses/and 45 Condos.



There are ten (10) single family completed or near completion with one single family home ready to start construction. Mayor Slay moved into one of these new homes in late July.



There eight (8) townhouses complete, with two sold.



There is a lot of interest in this housing site, especially in the Condos. Vatterott will start aggressively marketing these condos in the near future. They need to have 10 units under contract before they start construction.



Single family homes will start around $275,000 –High end $380,000.



Townhouses will start around $250,000.



Condos will start around $170,000.



· Windsor School: This property will be placed on the market to be sold sometime later this year.



Hopefully, within the next couple of weeks, all the trees will be trimmed, limbs removed and the grass cut.



There has been interest in making this site a combination Senior Housing, Assisted Living and Skilled Nursing Facility complex.



Fr. Mike, and a group from IHM and I visited and discussed this possibility with Cardinal Ritter Institute.



We are talking about the possibility CRI buying the site and constructing three buildings that will benefit the seniors that live in are area.



It’s just an idea.



· Great River Greenway- Germania Pedestrian/Bike Trail: This project was slow to start but, will be completed soon. The ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled for October 14th @ 10:00am, at Germania & Eugene. Mayor Slay is scheduled to attend, along with GRG personnel.



The estimated project cost is $1.5-2 million dollars.



The next phase will be to extend this trail from Germania/I-55 and route it behind the Loughborough Commons project and connect to the existing Carondelet Park Trails.



· The Old Goodwill Store @ Morganford & Carondelet: As you can see. “Dollar Tree” has moved in and is now open for business. They occupy nearly 2/3 of the building with the remainder occupied by “Plumbers Supply”.



· Old 7/11 @ Gravois/Loughborough: “Papa Johns” has signed a contract to utilize ½ of the building. There is interest in the other half. Cricket Cellular is interested in the location.



· Willmore Park- Dog Park: Opened a few ago, they are expanding their facility. This is a very successful program.



· Pace Properties, Weber Road: As previously mentioned, Wal-Mart is the large anchor store. No eminent Domain will be used. This project is still “On Hold”.



· Building Inspections – 12th ward: I had the building inspector’s survey and cite property owners for the various violations this spring/summer. By the amount of phone calls & e-mails to me, it was a success.



· BP Station- Gravois/Germania: CVS Pharmacy will be the new store in town. This Fortune 500 Company is in the process of acquiring this site. They also have contracts to buy two additional single family houses along Germania and three single family houses along Austria. They plan to build a multi-million dollar commercial development project.



This will be the first one built in the City of St. Louis. They plan to build at least 20 new stores throughout the metropolitan St. Louis area.



Demolition on the site is scheduled to begin early next year with construction completed late 2009.



This competition will be to our advantage.



END

Thanks for the post, I was unable to attend this one.



The Papa Johns/Cricket announcement is disappointing. I was hoping that cheezy 7/11 building would get razed and they would build to the street with parking access in back. I guess the Papa Johns on Gravois near Christy will close. Too bad, as that location is in an old, classy building.



The CVS development sounds like it could be another suburban style mess. Let's let the alderman (Fred Heitert?) know now that we'd prefer good design standards. Imagine if CVS could set precedent in the city by building thoughtful, urban minded pharmacies. I would exclusively shop there if that was the case.

God, that intersection at Gravois and Hampton is already a clusterfark, this will add to the mess. I don't think I've ever seen a 'new' Walgreens with a full parking lot. Why do they need to tear down those homes?



Good news about the Boulevard Heights development. However, I had kinda hoped the old 7-11 site would be used to straighten out the intersection of Loughborough and Gravois. I too wonder if this is a new Papa John's or if the one down the street by Gravois and Christy is moving?

Thanks for all the new info.



I've been wondering how much longer the BP at Gravois/Germania would sit vacant. So now we'll have Walgreens, CVS, and also the Schnucks' pharmacy at that intersection (BTW, there's one of those cool metal Lustron houses a couple of doors past the Steak & Shake on the fourth corrner).