VIAGRA NEWS

Source: Elmira Star-Gazette

Date: 5-Jul-2007

Author: G. Jeffrey Aaron

Carmen Cicero, senior project manager for Westlake Construction Services in Syracuse, has built a lot of drugstores for the Eckerd and Walgreens pharmacy chains -- including both Eckerd stores in Elmira.

Now he's overseeing the construction of the new Walgreens on Pennsylvania Avenue on Elmira's Southside, which will stand next to the Eckerd he built on an adjacent parcel in 1999.

In fact, the last six Walgreens his company constructed are next to an Eckerd, he said.

Meanwhile, less than a mile north across the Main Street Bridge, Timothy Phillipson is supervising the construction of another Walgreens, which will stand next to the Eckerd at North Main and Second streets.

And like Cicero, several of the other Walgreens stores that Phillipson's employer -- Lamparelli Construction of Cheektowaga, N.Y. -- has recently built have an Eckerd for a neighbor.

There's more to support the notion that the trend of Walgreens locating its stores near an Eckerd is not just a coincidence.

In Phillipson's hometown of Yorkshire, N.Y., a Rite-Aid pharmacy and an Eckerd stood side by side.

When the two chains merged last month, the Rite-Aid moved into the Eckerd store and Walgreens then bought the empty Rite-Aid building.

The two Walgreens being built simultaneously in Elmira are among the 500 stores the company plans to open this fiscal year, which began in September 2006.

So far, 352 have been opened in the first nine months.

The Illinois-based pharmacy chain, with more than 5,700 stores in 48 states and Puerto Rico, is targeting the hundreds of thousands of aging baby boomers in the Northeast.

Walgreens would like to see most of them use its stores for prescription medicines and other supplies, a company spokeswoman said, and the chain is looking to expand throughout the region.

But those goals aren't the ones driving Cicero and Phillipson.

They're concerned about meeting their construction deadlines.

Although the North Main Street project got a two-month head start on the Pennsylvania Avenue site, both should be wrapped up about the same time.

On North Main, the foundation work is completed and stone masons are erecting the store's cinder block walls.

The structural steel to support the roof is expected to be on-site today, Phillipson said.

Once it is set in place, the roofing installed and the concrete floor poured, the work pace picks up considerably when the plumbers, electricians and other tradesmen begin their part of the effort.

So far, said Phillipson, nothing out of the ordinary has happened that should delay the anticipated Oct. 29 opening.

"There are about 20 workers here now, but that number will increase as the project moves ahead," he said.

The structural steel for the Southside site should be delivered by the middle of next month, said Cicero.

The project is being developed by MacFarland Development of Syracuse.

The historic Centenary United Methodist Church was torn down to make way for the drugstore.

As the church was coming down, demolition workers discovered a bricked-over 1884 cornerstone that was presented to the church's members.

Church members also will receive the two large granite crosses that had been installed above the church's front doors.

About a week ago, said Cicero, workers began building the pad on which the store will stand by bringing in and then compacting truckload after truckload of soil.

The foundation work is next on the list, followed by erecting the walls.

The structure will then be topped by the roofing supports before 50 to 60 tradesmen are called in for their tasks.

"After the structural steel comes on July 18, the next big date I'm worrying about is Nov. 1, when all the work is supposed to be finished," said Cicero.