Walgreen Readies Site for Third Fayetteville Store

Demolition workers tore down the building that housed Nelson Funeral Home at the corner of Joyce Boulevard and Shiloh Drive in November to make way for Fayetteville’s third Walgreen store.

Rose Wilkerson, assistant to developer Tom Gamsjaeger of Chicago, said construction would likely begin in February and be completed in July.

The developer originally filed a preliminary grading plan for the Shiloh Drive store in September 2002. The 14,560-SF building will be on a 1.74-acre site. CEI Engineering Associates of Bentonville is the engineer for the project. The city is paying $29,000 to split the cost of an 8-inch water line that will connect to a 12-inch waterline loop that is also used by the Northwest Arkansas Mall.

Walgreens currently has a store at the corner of College Avenue and Township Road. The company’s second Fayetteville store is under construction at 524 S. School Ave. in a building that previously housed O’Reiley’s Automotive, which moved across the street. Walgreen plans to open its second Fayetteville store at the end of March. Neither of those two stores was developed by Gamsjaeger.

Walgreen Co., the nation’s largest pharmacy chain, is based in Deerfield, Ill. The company has 4,291 stores in 44 states.

Walgreen Co., which is expanding throughout Arkansas, saw sales increase by 13.3 percent for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31 from $28.7 billion to $32.5 billion. Net income increased from $1.019 billion to $1.175 billion in fiscal 2003.