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Walgreens to turn Borders into upscale, Euro-style 'boutique'
By adamg on Tue, 02/28/2012 - 6:26am
The Globe reports Walgreens is turning the former bookstore into an "emporium" with "a European boutique feel" that goes way beyond traditional pharmacy offerings to include everything from a sushi bar to a hair salon.
A similar Walgreens mega-store in New York is open 24 hours. The Chicago outlet is only open until midnight but has a wine store and "a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine dispensing 130 varieties of Coca Cola fountain drinks." The chain has yet to say what hours it would try for in our sleepy burg.
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Comments
bizarre concept, but
I guess anything's better than an empty store front! Thankfully, knowing this city, it won't be a 24 hr. store... that place would be a magnet for trouble in the wee hours. Anyone who disagrees hasn't walked around DTX around 2am lately.
Can't wait to consume more peeps and sodas here.
Yeah! A drug store is exactly what Downtown Crossing has been lacking. I look forward to purchasing all the different kinds of sodas that I can't find 20 feet away at the 'upscale' CVS.
Choice is always better
There are a lot more residents down here now and the rinky-dink CVS outlets just aren't getting it done. With no competitors, they're also free to let their already horrendous customer service slip further.
They should include a
They should include a gambling suite. Keno tables, a scratch ticket pit, you know really classy.
sounds unique
But I was really hoping something exciting would go into that space. A restaurant, another store...this isn't your "normal" drugstore, but not exactly going to inspire a downtown revitalization.
from the Chicago Press release
"A best-in-class wine selection boasting more than 700 fine wines will pair well with artisan and brie cheeses as well as an assortment of specialty meats, decadent chocolates and more."
Somehow, the description of "artisan and brie" as two different kinds of cheeses doesn't inspire confidence. If they're going to try to enter that market in the sophisticated Boston area, they're going to have to step it up. Better not to do it than to do a half a$$ed attempt.
I think it's a shame because that building has such spectacular frontage, too bad it's going to be a lame 'master of none" convenience store.
one top shopping
While I'm at Walgreens, I'll pick up my prescription, which I really shouldn't mix with alcohol, but oh what the hell! I'm gonna spend my Tuesday night with a fine bottle of Ruin-Your-Nighty and some, no wait, f*ck it, give me the box with the spigot. Anyway, some Riunite and some Codeine then I'll poop my pants in Depends which were 50 cents off.
What song did Sinatra ever sing about this place?
Hehehehehe. "The sophisticated Boston area." You mean the one with no restaurants with Michelin stars? The one with no real theater company to speak of? The one that just watched an opera company close up shop while belching its way through a 12 pack of Sam and a Patriots loss?
You have to be kidding me. The store mentioned in the press release opened in Chicago, a town that manages to keep its trains running 24 hours a day. A town that manages to have public art and open green space without turning it into a median strip. A town whose shopping and restaurants make Boston look like a suburban strip mall with a giant hole in its middle.
It's a wonder the "sophisticated Boston area" made due with the Borders that preceded this Walgreens and the bank that preceded that. I'm sure it would have made a lovely venue for Boston's nonexistent music scene, a great theater space for the theater community that doesn't exist beyond Emerson and the occasional show in Cambridge or perhaps a lovely home for Boston's Museum of Natural History or Museum of Modern Art.
Wait, Boston doesn't have those either? No wonder a Walgreens opening gets so much press in your town.
Sincerely,
Hot Doug
Historically, Walgreens has never done well in Downtown Crossing
Historically, Walgreens has never done well in Downtown Crossing. I'm not sure why. In the 90s, there was one on the Franklin Street side of what is now TJ Maxx, and in the 2000s there was one on Summer Street. Both were relatively short lived. Personally, I prefer Walgreens to CVS. Of course, what they are now proposing sounds like a very different concept.
Time to stop thinking of DTX as a shopping destination
That boat is long gone from the dock. People are not going to start flocking back to Downtown Crossing from the suburbs, not when it's a lot easier to get to Legacy Place or the Natick Mall or whatever.
But so what? This isn't 1985 anymore. In addition to the daytime office workers and college students, people actually live downtown. Thousands of them ("House Hunters" on HGTV even did an episode involving a couple looking at a condo across the street from Macy's).
It's become a neighborhood. Let's treat it like one: Start encouraging the sorts of businesses that neighborhoods need, like drugstores and, gasp, supermarkets. And cater to the needs of that specific neighborhood, in this case, affluent people who make a conscious decision to live in the closest we'll get to an actual dense big-city core, so yes, let restaurants stay open late. Try to attract upscale restoration-type shops. Let Walgreens play with its idea of a boutique Woolworth's for the new millennium. I'm sure there's somebody at the BRA who could work on this. Just let's get rid of the fiction that it's still the 20th century in Downtown Crossing.
Great points, Adam.
That train has sailed.
Shopping Destination
I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but I think DTX is still a great shopping location. Sure people are moving to the suburbs, but there are more and more people moving into the city to replace them. All those city dwellers still need somewhere to shop!
As one of the people that stayed in Boston post-graduation, I rely on the T to get to work, and Boston stores to buy everything I want. Without a car, I don't have access to the malls in the suburbs. I think there are plenty of people that are in similar situations, and like having places to wander around and shop. It's especially nice as it's outdoors, walking distance from the Commons, and much less depressing than the average mall (even with the Filene's hole).
I hope the sushi bar isn't
I hope the sushi bar isn't near the hair salon or worse near the walk-in clinic.
I miss the old Woolworths,
I miss the old Woolworths, something like that still makes sense for a lot of people who cant drive to a Target. I don't know about the gourmet angle though, I just can't associate Walgreens with spending top dollar or feeling pampered. At the heart of it all will be all of those aisles of slightly embarrassing drug store products for icky old-people problems. I remember there being some fly-by-night team logo-wear shop in there for like a week around the Superbowl.
So yeah I'm picturing some awful hybrid of a Wal-Mart and that Marche place that used to be in the Pru.
ugh
Because DTX doesn't have enough drug stores..
CVS/Pharmacy on Washington (next to Borders)
CVS on Winter (on Ped Mall near Park St T)
CVS/Pharmacy on Summer
CVS on Milk (Post Office Square)
CVS/Pharmacy at Center Plaza (ok more Gov't Center but still downtown)
CVS/Pharmacy in Chinatown (okay not DTX but closeby)
I'm all for non empty store fronts but do we REALLY need another drug store here. I would have rather seen a supermarket or a department store go instead. DTX doesnt need another drug store.
Notice a pattern?
If you'd named a half dozen different drug stores of varying quality, maybe there'd be a case for saying this shouldn't be a Walgreens. Unfortunately, all of the drug stores you've named are CVS's, and all of them are awful (I don't even think the one on Milk Street has a pharmacy). Ok, maybe you can argue that the one on Summer isn't so bad, but other than that, it's a sorry lot. If all goes well, Walgreen's attempt at pretending to be Woolworth's will be successful enough shut at least three of these CVS stores down.
Walgreens
There's nothing that says classy European boutique like Walgreens.