Thursday, July 8, 2010
Environment No Prescription for CVS
Posted by Mary Cashiola on Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 2:26 PM
The proposal for a CVS pharmacy at the corner of Cooper and Union — where the former Union Avenue Methodist Church sits — failed at the Land Use Control Board earlier today.
Staff from the Office of Planning and Development recommended rejecting the proposal, citing issues with the site plan — both the placement of the building, as well as the amount of windows — the demolition of the historic Union Avenue Methodist Church building, and the fact that the proposal does not meet the standards of the yet-to-be-approved Midtown zoning overlay. OPD said the plan “reflects a typical suburban retail development form.”
Attorney Ricky Wilkins, representing CVS, said the company spends a great deal of time studying each of their sites before designing a site plan.
“If the data supports an urban design, that’s what CVS builds. If the data indicates that a suburban design as described — we don’t believe ours is that — is needed then that is what our site plan reflects,” Wilkins said. “Union Avenue is a state highway. Our pedestrian counts indicate that 40,000 more cars to every 100 pedestrians that travel up and down Union and Cooper.”
Opponents of the plan were out in full-force, filling the council chambers. They cited many of the same reasons why OPD staff recommended against approval.
“There are three major drug stores in a five-block area,” said Gordon Alexander, founder of Save Overton Square. “A new CVS … will not fit any pressing need in the neighborhood.”
Chooch Pickard, head of the Memphis Regional Design Center and a preservation architect, showed pictures of other, more urban-type, CVS locations around the country and suggested they hold the current proposal.
“It’s absolutely not appropriate. It really should be brick for it to fit within the character of Midtown,” Pickard said. “In other cities where they’ve been held to a higher standard, they’ve conformed to those standards.”
“I moved to Midtown because it’s not the suburbs. I think it would be a shame to see this development plopped down in the middle of Midtown," Pickard said.
Though the application was denied, CVS can appeal the decision to the City Council.
Comments (10)
Showing 1-10 of 10
Union avenue is a state highway? Oh, that's rich. That's why they hire lawyers, to look this stuff up.
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Ricky Wilkins, a land use lawyer? Hmmm. CVS is obviously girding for the political fight to come, which will have very little to do with the merits of the proposed plan. It may have more to do with the attempt to impose the "overlay" restrictions on CVS' plan, even though those restrictions have yet to be legally adopted.
Whenever politicians mess with zoning or planning decisions, the result is almost always unsatisfying (usually to all parties concerned). It's amazing how frequently they ignore the recommendations of the planning/zoning experts they hire (OPD) so they can substitute their own politically-motivated decisions. I hope that doesn't happen here, but I'm not real optimistic it won't.
Hopefully CVS will quickly redesign their store and Memphis Heritage will allow the sale. Rescue from the old church what can be re-used or sold, and let's get on with it. Please don't drag this out like the Overton Square debacle.
There are only a couple of ways for a national chain to keep improving their bottom line. The main one is to improve market share. And the other is to improve cost of goods. The way contracts are written, you have to increase market share to get better cost of goods. So I wouldn't expect to see them back away from world domination any time soon.
Can we please ask the other question that's begged here, namely what benefit it is to have four drug stores (not counting Wiles Smith), Rite-Aid, Walgreen's, Ike's and potentially CVS, within a stone's throw of each other? In a society that's becoming increasingly drug-addled, where every other ad on TV is for Tommy V's favorite limp-dick (or some other prescription) drug, and where you can now buy drugs in the same places you buy cake mix or power tools, do we really need another drug store?
This is not an illegitimate inquiry, either, especially now that the process will become one of the "highest best" use of the land, as it happens, to be determined by politicians who are supposed to be driven by their constituents' interests.
You'd think all this competition between drug stores would be good for consumers, but the fact is, it's not, any more than it is in the other parts of the medical/health care/insurance industrial complex. Drug prices continue to escalate and big pharma continues to defeat efforts to rein in their high-cost practices, including preventing drug re-importation from Canada. Check out the price of any prescription drug you care to name at any of the existing drug stores, and the most you'll find is a few pennies difference (if that). It's almost like they coordinate the prices (they wouldn't do that, would they?).
It shouldn't have surprised anyone that when the Republicans rammed through their astonishingly expensive Medicare prescription drug bill, it included a provision that prohibited the federal government from negotiating lower drug prices. It's also no surprise that the drug industry's indentured servants (a/k/a federal legislators) continue to prevent drug re-importation, or that internet pharmacies are still a minute percentage of drug purchases.
We need another drug store in Midtown about as much as we need another bank (to reject loan applications), gas station (actually, we could use a couple more of those--at least they compete) or fast-food emporium (to feed our obesity epidemic).
What benefit, indeed!
Now Marty is deciding when the free market should be allowed and when it shouldn't. People don't go into business to suit the needs of a community. People go into business to capitalize on the needs of a community. If an industry can make money by being on every street corner then more power to them.
You haven't ever run a business have you Marty?
CVS knows their own business model and demographic. They people a lot more business savvy than you to plan their development. Who are you to oppose any business who wants to invest in a community and open its doors?
If Chooch (appropriately named) and Wacko West want a CVS inside the church, then they should pay for the building modifications required to make a business adapt to it.
The building in question is an eyesore, and America agrees that Overton Square is a dump. NOBODY is standing lin line to invest in these abortions edifices. They need to be destroyed and replaced with something that reflects modern civilization.
I hope City Council has the good sense to flush Pickard and West once and for all.
I have never in my life seen a bunch of nincompoops who, in the center of an economically dying community likes to chase investment away.
Idiots!
"People don't go into business to suit the needs of a community. People go into business to capitalize on the needs of a community."
I'm hard-pressed to come up with a more succinct argument in favor of government regulation of business than the one you have just provided, Tommy. You just shot yourself with your own gun.
TV: just because an industry can make money being on every corner, doesn't mean it should, or has to, be. There are many business that can make money being on every corner that most people wouldn't want around the corner from them.
I just don't understand why you seem to think that what a business wants to do in a neighborhood is more important than what its residents want. I'm just thankful there are zoning and planning restrictions and guidelines that protect neighborhoods from attitudes like yours.
There are plenty of successful cities that have (in my best Sam Jackson voice) "motherf#@$ing standards". I am going to go out on a limb here, and call it a prerequisite.
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