Retail pharmacy receives weak planning commission response from city’s comprehensive land use plan in Racine.
CVS Health Corp. (NYSE:CVS) has got itself involved in a court battle to keep its downtown pharmacy on lease in Main Street of Kansas City, as it filed a lawsuit at a County Circuit Court in Jackson against the landlord, Commerce Tower Group. It is seeking the injunction to prevent the latter from terminating its lease agreement without providing any grounds for a proper cause. This comes amidst the Commerce Tower Group counter claim that the healthcare company previously defaulted on the lease based on allegations that the latter had failed to maintain its premises.
The Main Street property has been housed by retail drugstore chain since the early 1950’s. In 2006, the retail pharmacy company acquired a small retail store Osco, after which CVS proposed to merge its downtown location with the one located at Independence Avenue. The public did not take it down well, and after much pressure, it dropped the plan and instead decided to push ahead with a $2 million upgrade and remodeling store in 2007.
In response to those allegations, CVS investigated and discovered that the deterioration of premises was caused by ordinary wear and tear in the 50-year-old building, but Michael Knight, a partner in the Commerce Group, stated that the property is in a horrible shape and CVS is in default of its lease.
A hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled to be held in the Jackson County Circuit Court this week but has been postponed till the end of the current month. Meanwhile, Sean O’Byrne, vice president of business development of the Downtown Council, is mediating between both companies.
Meanwhile, the healthcare company is facing another bureaucratic hurdle following the Racine Plan Commission’s not-so-overwhelming vote to the City Council to amend the city’s comprehensive land-use plan for more intensive business usage at the location of Ohio Street and Washington Avenue.
The pharmacy is going to swim through many city approval processes for the past several months for the construction of more than 13000 square foot pharmacy store on more than 4 acres at the southeastern corner of the intersection.
CVS filed the application in late November last year. The commission sent a recommendation to the City Council not to go for any changes in the city’s land use plan but was ignored in April this year. The council sent that plan back to the commission. The proposal was proved controversial due to traffic concerns, as well as the impacts on the neighborhood, and much more.
Now Matt Sadowski, City Assistant Director of City Development, says that once the new plan reaches the Councilman, a three-quarter vote may be required, since owners of the properties openly oppose the proposed development and even have filed a petition against it.
CVS Health Corp’s stock price ended the day at $104.85, a minute gain of 0.04% the previous day.
No comments:
Post a Comment