Those shopping at the Meriden Square Mall in Meriden, CT will no longer be able to enjoy the convenience of having a drug store under the same roof as their favorite specialty and department stores.
CVS recently announced that January 6, 2008 will be the last day for this Lewis Avenue store which was one of the first tenants in the mall back in 1971.
Striped gray’s and reds greeted shoppers after a busy holiday season and the store was already showing its age with worn out carpet and worn ceiling tiles.
The store was located near the mall’s center dome on the upper level.
The store opened when the Woonsocket, RI chain called itself Consumer Value Stores and like many other mall stores, it did not have a pharmacy.
The CVS Pharmacy Web site states that currently the chain derives 68% of its revenue from the pharmacy business.
This is a dramatic change when in 1971 CVS differentiated itself from competitors by opening small health and beauty aids stores in enclosed shopping malls.
Signs instruct customers to visit nearby stand-alone CVS Pharmacy locations in Meriden.
These include three: one at 679 East Main Street, one at 839 East Main Street, and one at 540 West Main Street.
They feature later hours than the CVS mall store with the 839 East Main Street that stays open until midnight 7 days a week.
Signs do not indicate what will occupy the former CVS store once it closes.
It also does not indicate whether this location suffered from declining profits over time.
The chain is also preparing to shut down its store in the Westfield Trumbull Shopping Mall at 5065 Main Street, which also does not have a pharmacy.
The last CVS closure in recent memory was the one at the East Brook Mall in Mansfield on Storrs Road (Route 195).
East Brook Mall is anchored by Kohl’s, JC Penney, T.J. Maxx, and Cinema North.
This mall attracts residents from many surrounding communities as well as the University of Connecticut and Eastern Connecticut State University.
Nearby CVS stores to there included stand-alone locations in Willimantic (on Route 32 near downtown) and Mansfield Center (at the Route 195/Route 44 intersection).
CVS continues to have several Connecticut mall drug stores open despite their aging and cramped conditions as compared to their stand-alone locations which feature much more merchandise.
These mall locations include Crystal Mall in Waterford, Danbury Fair Mall in Danbury, Buckland Hills Mall in Manchester, Enfield Square Mall in Enfield, and Westfarms Mall in West Hartford.
CVS is also shutting down cramped locations in strip shopping centers so it can, in many times, increase square footage by twice their original store.
I remember that CVS had a store in a small shopping center strip in Niantic and one on Main Street in Old Saybrook.
Both were closed when the chain built brand new stand-alone locations allowing much more light to stream into the new stores.
Perhaps stand-alone locations also allow more customers to shop with less crowding and for one to do much more shopping all under one roof.
Some stand-alone stores have drive-thru prescription windows allow sick customers to quickly get the prescriptions they need without having to transverse the store.
According to the CVS Web site, the company prefers locations for future CVS stores to be highly visible, in a high traffic area, minimum 18,000 people in the trade area, for available space to be between 1.5 and 2 acres, ability to build a free-standing location with drive-thru, and capacity for 80 vehicles.
The free standing prototype is 12,900 square feet but many freestanding CVS stores can be as large as 14,000 to 15,000 square feet.
Currently CVS Pharmacy is competing with Walgreens Pharmacy and Rite-Aid Pharmacy which recently acquired Brooks Pharmacy and Eckerd Pharmacy.
