According to several sources, a new CVS Pharmacy is planned for the southwest corner of S. Shepherd Dr. and West Alabama St., across the street from the Trader Joe’s in the Alabama Shopping Center. The owners of Roeder’s Pub, Oaks Cleaners, Ruchi’s Taqueria El Rincon de Mexico, and Neon Nail received notice from the landlord of the Shepherd Corner shopping center in late August that their leases would be terminated by the end of November.
Patrons of Oaks Cleaners at 2103 West Alabama St. are being referred to the company’s 2 other locations (the closest is in the Avalon Place shopping center on Westheimer at Bellmeade); Roeder’s Pub, at 3116 S. Shepherd Dr., is searching for a new spot. The shopping center is notable for its site plan, which has businesses fronting S. Shepherd Dr. and has its parking lot in the back, accessed from West Alabama St.
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A plan by developer Read King to build a multi-story development containing 250 apartments and 30,000 sq. ft. of retail space on the site fell through 3 years ago. A plan earlier this year to turn the site into a CVS fell apart, but a reconstituted redevelopment deal appears to be in place this time, a source tells Swamplot.
- Previously on Swamplot: The Shops and Apartments Planned for the Block South of the Alabama Theater
Photos: Swamplot inbox
This should be a a total traffic cluster fuck. What’s wrong with the CVS at Kirby/SW Frwy; CVS at Westheimer/Bellmeade; Walgreens at Kirby/Bolsover and god know how many others, seems like a ridiculous location for yet another drug store.
This town needs another CVS store like it needs a hurricane. Please go away CVS.
Great, just what we need – another CVS. Because the 0.9 miles to the location at Westheimer and Bellmeade, the 1.1 miles to the location at Kirby and SW Freeway, or the 1.5 miles to the location at Montrose and Richmond are just MUCH too far – not to mention Walgreens locations in the vicinity. Another bland cookie cutter, retail only development with one store, a wrap around parking lot most of the way around the building and no difference between it and its suburban counterparts in layout or design. It would be asking too much to do something denser or more creative with this lot, I suppose…
Losing a dry cleaners and nail salon, gaining a CVS. Just another day in Houston.
Ironic comment from a poster called “Higher Density”.
Those of us who actually live in the neighborhood have been waiting for a walkable drugstore for years. (Randall’s/Safeway/Tom Thumb doesn’t really count.) Yeah, I can walk a mile to the Kirby/59 store and cross two sets of 5 lanes of feeder road (currently under construction) on my way, but one just a few blocks away would be awesome… except for the vagrants who will be attracted to the parking lot like pigeons to a pile of bread crumbs.
Don’t forget the one at Richmond and Montrose, Higher Density!
Not to mention the stylistically challenged nature of CVS stores in general. Seriously, don’t we have enough of these barnacles in this area?
@Higher Density – I completely agree, especially since the ONLY lefthand turn you can make is from W. Alabama onto Shepherd heading towards Westheimer – a fact that many people disregard. Glad they never built that apt. complex, though; that would be a clusterfuck. The CBS at Kirby/59 is also easier to get to.
Can they please make it look like a suburban cvs so I don’t forget that I am in Houston?
And so we’ll replace actual sidewalk-fronting urban-style buildings with a freestanding store smack in the center of a sea of parking, just like in the suburbs. Why have a central city at all? Let’s just develop it to be identical to Katy! I hate CVS.
Higher: The good news is if others agree with you, then the drug store won’t get the customers it needs to stay in business and something more appropriate will take it’s place. Or this will draw customers from the other locations if people find this one to be more convenient (and those will become something else).
.
I trust that the people that put up the $ to open this store did their due diligence to make sure the demand is there. But they could be wrong. And if they are, the market will let them know. Awesome how that works.
wow, I remember hearing about the large apartment complex development many years ago, but didn’t know that it all fell through. big shame if it’s just going to be a CVS that will add absolutely nothing to the area. we already have tons of pharmacies and certainly don’t need another, but I guess that shows how profitable and overbuilt the medical industry is.
I’m still convinced that CVS is really just a secret REIT designed to acquire land holdings for the next few decades before sellling out. everything else is just a side business.
the one in Rice Village is really depressing
Other than when they sell the parking to their neighbors, has anyone ever seen a CVS/Wallgreen’s parking lot even 3/4 full?
The waste , aside from that same tired red brick and corner door cough…cough…architecture, will be double the amount of parking spaces the place will ever truly require. and we will be stuck with more concrete thanks to COH’s arcane development rules.
I hope it isn’t built in a sea of parking lot and actually faces the street with parking in the back!
Any chance this ends up being a better-than-a-box? Highly doubt it. Can’t wait to see the tacky “Flu Shots” on the marquee. People don’t even know what’s in them and they sell them to 6 month old babies. Talk about hideous corner drug pushers. Maybe they’re trying to get in on the coming Ebola scare….gotta love that density….epidemics were made for it. Cha-ching
In addition to all the close-in CVS locations listed by alternativemike, there’s the one on Waugh at Dallas and the one in midtown, all of which I can easily reach from my Montrose address. But good lord, just how many different CVS locations do I really need easy access to? This is ridiculous.
Yes!!! Can’t wait till this is built! Any artistic renderings on the internets?
I withdraw my quote of the day.
One time in college I ate at that Ruchi’s and it gave me the shits like my backside was a category 5 hurricane. So I have mixed feelings about this development, because CVS is awful but so was Ruchi’s.
I love how if you click on the “Westlawn Terrace” link in the story’s info box, you get a series of snapshots of rumors of development on this corner going back 6½ years.
Trading a Mexican restaurant and an Irish bar for a CVS has never been, is not, and will never be an upgrade by the standards of any known metric . Spare me the song and dance about people needing their meds. The cure or relief from every known malady can be found in the places CVS is replacing.
Agree with coconutbutter and higher density. Shepherd has major access issues: you cannot turn left at major intersections, and there’s no dedicated left turn lane down the center. The only way you can easily get to that site is southbound on Shepherd or eastbound on Alabama; maybe westbound on Alabama if they position the building right. Of course, some people will try an illegal left turn anyway, pissing off every driver behind them. I can’t believe they’re tearing up Shepherd and not adding a center turn lane. Ridiculous.
Frustrating. Depending on how they design it, this has the potential to really downgrade the streetscape here, especially if they put a big parking lot up front. Why can’t they replace one of the strip malls instead?
Tick-tock. And the old Land-Sea-Sky shop no longer has the “for rent” sign either. What happens to Roeder’s/Maxwell’s/Cue-n-Cushion and Fly High Little Bunny (I’ve cared not of Ruchi’s, ever, since venerable Edi departed)… among the others… so no shits for me at least :)
If I recall correctly we said exactly this about the need for a new Barnes and Noble to replace half of the River Oaks Shopping Center. We were right about it then, too, for all the good it did.
I’m thrilled about this. Every time I drive by that corner, it smells like an overflowing Amtrak toilet. Good riddance!
I wish the city would make Shepherd a one-way street The only problem is I can’t find a decent non-residential street to make one-way in the opposite direction.
Speaking only for my greedy self (who lives across the street) I am thankful to be soon saved from those hellish drives to the CVS at 59 & Kirby. I’m getting up in years and have many prescriptions. Ruchi’s should have been gone long ago. At least it’s not another mattress place. Speaking of which, hopefully the Jenni’s center across Shepherd will soon be razed for another location of Revival Market or Hubcap Grill.
We live behind whole foods on Kirby @ Alabama and I walk to (cvs) on sw freeway @ Kirby all the time. Upper Kirby district has installed a.d.a. speculation sidewalks all the way. Love it. Traffic is so bad because too many cars. Sounds stupid, but look at how many cars with one person making short trips that you see.
The irony of this is reading through the multiple comments of people here complaining about a) what this does to traffic or b) How parking rules will insure a big suburban style parking lot in an urban location, yet in the “News of the Day” this morning, we read how the City Council’s big concern this week is about banning smoking from closed off pedestrian streets. Yeah, like another outside smoking ban is even in the top 20 things most citizens of this city are worried about—Liz Lemmon eye roll—
I just threw up in my mouth a little. Thankfully, I can get something for that at CVS.
I guess pharmacy is the new bank.
That place has a really cool neighborhood bar. This is an outrage. Boycott those nasty CVS bastards. Do not spend a penny with those souless monsters.
Lived around the corner for a couple of years around 7 years ago (Gables Citywalk – the Little Woodrow’s still existed :) … where will people go for a beer at 3am now? This is an epic loss for mid 20-ish $60k millionaires (not judging, I was one back then).
Within in a mile of my house there are 2 CVS, 3 Walgreens, a Target, Randalls, Fiesta and Kroger. Nine pharmacies. Why so many? Aging population with multiple meds for chronic conditions? Oversupply of pharmacists? (There are 7 pharmacy schools in Texas now, turning out around 1000 graduates annually). Don’t think this unique to the US.
Semper Fudge, which came first – – your story or your name?
Gisgo, I think this is entirely unique to the US. having a quasi-private medical system such as we have now has allowed our medical industry to become vastly overbuilt while maintaining very high profitability margins. how many hospitals are there in Houston all with the same top of the line equipment paid for by medicare? they can then turn around and sell their services for a higher premium to the HMO folks. this is why america has a horrendous return on expenditure for medicine. we have to find a way to make the system more efficient and actually use the limited supply of doctors that we have effectively. our current system has no efficiency at all or concern in that regard.
oh, but regarding the pharmacuy school crisis and the oversupply of them there’s a good article on that from a few days ago here:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119634/pharmacy-school-crisis-why-good-jobs-are-drying
I think this is a great location for a CVS – sorry folks, you’re going to have to go to Whataburger for your drunken nights.
Went to Fly High Little Bunny today to buy a gift. They said they have to leave also, and they don’t yet have another space leased. Like most jewelry stores, November and December are their big sales months, but they have to be out sometime in November. Go there and buy some gifts — they have great stuff, a lot of it handmade.
I appreciate Fly High, too, but perhaps they can move a half block down the street to the place vacated by the Starving Artist…
http://www.chron.com/life/article/Gallery-owner-Nikki-Araguz-is-practicing-the-art-4333871.php
The destruction is headed halfway up W. Alabama, too, according to today’s Chron.
http://www.chron.com/life/pets/article/Houston-dog-rescue-looking-for-a-new-home-after-5899158.php
I wonder what will become of the 2100 block of Sul Ross? I know Jamail-Garvis owns the house next door to Fly High, but ominously, SHEPHERD ALABAMA LLC owns a house smack-dab in the middle of the block… not coincidentally immediately behind the K-9 Rescue house that’s being vacated.
SHEPHERD ALABAMA LLC also owns the Fly High / Roeder’s / Ruchi’s buildings.
OK great – thanks for cutting down that 100+ year old Oak that was in that lot (until today). Could you really not have planned the parking lot around that tree?! I’ll vote with my feet and take my prescriptions with me. Bye CVS.
@Montrose Resident, what 100+ year old oak tree? The trees in that area were planted sometime around 1940, maybe 1935. On the 1944 aerials, they are all small, and the general area is pretty treeless.