Thursday, March 16, 2017

Bethesda CVS Pharmacy at Wisconsin & Bradley to close in April

It turns out there is such a thing as "Peak CVS" in an urban area. Many following the Target story since last year have wondered why CVS Pharmacy would open a second pharmacy inside Target, when the ubiquitous drugstore chain has one directly across Wisconsin Avenue at Bradley Boulevard. Now I have confirmed that the existing CVS will close April 3, and all of its pharmacy accounts will be automatically transferred to the new CVS inside Target across the street at 6831 Wisconsin Avenue.

CVS says their new pharmacy in Target will open on April 4, 2017 - five days earlier than Target's announced opening date for the Bethesda store. That suggests the Target may open prior to the announced date of April 9. This is the first CVS store to close in Bethesda history, by my recollection. The Arlington Road CVS ceased to offer its trademark 24-hour pharmacy counter in December 2015, after being hit hard by Montgomery County Councilmember Hans Riemer's "nighttime economy" disaster that shuttered late night businesses all over Bethesda.

So you won't have to do anything, if the current store is your CVS location. Parking to pick up your prescriptions at the new Target CVS location? Well, that's another story - you're on your own to face that nightmare. Fortunately, several other CVS stores remain, including Arlington Road, a second one up Wisconsin at Cheltenham Drive, and on Sangamore Road in the Shops at Sumner Place shopping center.

Meanwhile, it's hard not to notice that the ground floor retail in the Adagio is beginning to struggle. There's already vacant space there, and now another large tenant is departing with the CVS move.





18 comments:

Anonymous said...

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANS!

Anonymous said...

Trader Joe's should move over there. Much more store space. They can use the other vacant retail space there for storage.

Anonymous said...

Wait a second-- Hans Riemer's nighttime economy initiative might not have been successful, but how did it lead to "shuttered late night businesses all over Bethesda"? Specifics, please.

Robert Dyer said...

8:13: 9 (possibly 10 if the closure of Quincy's becomes official) bars closed since Riemer got started. 1 of the only 2 24-hour restaurants in Bethesda closed. Downtown businesses cut back late night hours, including Barnes & Noble and Nando's. Late night food trucks disappeared altogether. And CVS ended overnight pharmacy hours. Very specific.

Anonymous said...

MORIBUND!

Anonymous said...

Dyer, how many "night spots" were there in 2011, and how many are there now? Turnover is normal in the bar/restaurant business - many if not most fail within two years. Just counting the number of individual businesses that have come and gone is a meaningless statistic.

Anonymous said...

The Tysons Corner Barnes & Noble also cut back on their evening hours, and the B&N stores in Georgetown, downtown and Union Station closed down completely, leaving none in the District. Does this mean that NoVa and DC are "moribund", too?

Anonymous said...

9:09 AM I don't think the B&N in the mall is analogous to Bethesda Row.

Robert Dyer said...

9:03: Not meaningless. Many of these nightspots had previously been replaced with other nightclub concepts. The difference this time was that many of them were shuttered for good, and have been - or will be - replaced by retail or daytime restaurants. That was a seismic shift caused by Riemer's debacle and votes on anti-business laws and taxes that devastated bars and restaurants.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Walgreen's can move into the old CVS spot now. The CVS was only there because Walgreen's was interested in that spot. CVS sucks.

Anonymous said...

Wait? That's news. Quincy's is closing? Poor Arnie. Two time loser. Couldn't be happier.

Anonymous said...

"The difference this time was that many of them were shuttered for good, and have been - or will be - replaced by retail or daytime restaurants."

So what is the number?

Friends of Woodmont Triangle said...

Apparently, Bethesda Magazine's Steve Hull just said "oh, fuck it", and lifted this story directly from here without sourcing Robert Dyer.

I guess Steve and his interns are not even pretending to be playing journalist at this point.

Anonymous said...

This blog has devolved into fiction and instability.
It used to have promise.
Pity. New aesthetic. Things change. Life goes on.

Robert Dyer said...

7:46: I was the first to report the closure of this CVS - my story was later knocked off without attribution by the small and slightly-failing magazine. They had the wrong closing date, which would be the only thing qualifying as "fiction" - maybe you should be posting critical comments on their article blasting them for the failure to attribute, and failure to get the closing date correct.

Anonymous said...

Nah. Happy posting my critical comments here where they're needed most.

Happy St Pats day to you!

Robert Dyer said...

7:56: Needed more than on a site that plagiarizes and publishes fake news? Not likely, Bozo.

Anonymous said...

So do you have a NET number for night spots that Hans Riemer allegedly destroyed?