Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

SamSpade
Store Manager
Store Manager
Posts: 1570
Joined: September 13th, 2015, 4:39 pm
Has thanked: 374 times
Been thanked: 57 times
Status: Offline

Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

Post by SamSpade »

In the first floor of a building near PSU that originally hoped to attract a grocery tenant, CVS will be opening their first non-Target/non-specialty location in the Portland, Ore. / Vancouver, Wash. area.
https://www.oregonlive.com/business/201 ... downt.html
The article is a little dated from 2015, but the building has been under construction and looks quite a bit like the attached renderings.

Developer site:
https://corespaces.com/project/the-collective/
storewanderer
Posts: 14379
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 298 times
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

Post by storewanderer »

CVS Stores are nothing to get excited about but they need more locations to help their model work better with the insurance integration. They have been moving into markets they did not previously have freestanding stores in; Seattle, Denver, etc.
Alpha8472
Posts: 3929
Joined: February 24th, 2009, 8:55 pm
Been thanked: 79 times
Status: Offline

Re: Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

Post by Alpha8472 »

The pharmacy industry is going through some serious changes right now. There are massive layoffs of pharmacy employees across all chains nationwide. I do not know what is going on, but the people in the corporate offices are laying off workers in a vain attempt to save money. This is going to backfire on them. The remaining employees are overworked and stressed out. The workload is overwhelming and mistakes are going to be made. Patients are going to be given the wrong drugs and people are going to die. It is dangerous. People need to contact the state boards of pharmacy and complain about this crisis right now.

CVS wants to open new stores in new markets. However, their prices are absurd. It is almost to the point of convenience store price gouging. People also do not realize how understaffed their pharmacies are. The quality of what you get is of concern. There could be medication errors due to understaffing. Trying to cut costs on staffing is not going to work out if people die and start suing the chains. Employees are being laid off and long time pharmacists are leaving due to the awful conditions.

These pharmacy chains will not have any quality pharmacists left if everyone is jumping ship.

I do not know what the future of pharmacy holds. Will people just get so fed up that they will use mail order pharmacies? There are drugs that people need right away, and there are insulins that simply cannot be sent via mail cheaply. People need the face to face talking instead of waiting on the phone for an hour trying to talk to someone in a call center.
Last edited by Alpha8472 on July 27th, 2019, 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
rwsandiego
Store Manager
Store Manager
Posts: 1242
Joined: April 3rd, 2016, 10:57 pm
Has thanked: 23 times
Been thanked: 55 times
Status: Offline

Re: Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

Post by rwsandiego »

There is one stand-alone CVS pharmacy (that I know of) here in Phoenix. It is located across from Banner-University Hospital in Central Phoenix. If I'm not mistaken it is located within one of the hospital's clinics. There was one in San Diego, but it appears to have closed.

My insurance carrier (Anthem) has their own PBM and uses CVS/Caremark as a mail-order pharmacy. They also allow a 90-day supply at CVS pharmacies, but won't allow it at others (including mail-order). I think that's how CVS's pharmacy business will make money. Fewer employees, more prescriptions, but fewer refills. Of course, it will stink to fill a one-off because the short-staffed pharmacy will be busy fulfilling orders that would have gone to mail-order.
babs
Assistant Store Manager
Assistant Store Manager
Posts: 762
Joined: December 20th, 2016, 3:08 pm
Has thanked: 19 times
Been thanked: 64 times
Status: Offline

Re: Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

Post by babs »

SamSpade wrote: July 27th, 2019, 4:47 pm In the first floor of a building near PSU that originally hoped to attract a grocery tenant, CVS will be opening their first non-Target/non-specialty location in the Portland, Ore. / Vancouver, Wash. area.
https://www.oregonlive.com/business/201 ... downt.html
The article is a little dated from 2015, but the building has been under construction and looks quite a bit like the attached renderings.

Developer site:
https://corespaces.com/project/the-collective/
There are lot more CVS locations under development in Portland. Some of the ones I know about are:
- Pearl District - Old Storables location
- Sellwood - Tacoma street where a Goodwill Donation site used to be
- Hollywood District - Old QFC on 33rd
- Terwilliger - Old Market of Choice Building

I suspect they will do a 20-30 unit buildout of the market over time.
Alpha8472
Posts: 3929
Joined: February 24th, 2009, 8:55 pm
Been thanked: 79 times
Status: Offline

Re: Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

Post by Alpha8472 »

CVS has an insurance side that is biased towards their own CVS pharmacies. Of course, CVS wants to open up more pharmacies. They think that people will drive far and wide to get the 90 day supply which cannot be gotten at other pharmacy chains or mail order. This might work for them, but it is bad for people with CVS insurance that cannot drive absurd distances and are stuck with other local pharmacies.

The insurance industry needs reform.

I do not know why insurance companies are paying doctors so much while ignoring the most critical point of healthcare. The doctor diagnoses you, and the pharmacist heals you. In most cases without medications, you will not get better. Paying pharmacists less, overworking them, and making their jobs stressful is the last thing that insurance companies should do. A dead patient is no longer going to pay insurance premiums. Lawsuits will cost insurance companies more in the long term. Treating pharmacists as expendable is not the way to go. CVS is a major cause of these problems, because they are at the forefront of insurance cost cutting.
storewanderer
Posts: 14379
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 298 times
Contact:
Status: Offline

Re: Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: July 27th, 2019, 11:57 pm CVS has an insurance side that is biased towards their own CVS pharmacies. Of course, CVS wants to open up more pharmacies. They think that people will drive far and wide to get the 90 day supply which cannot be gotten at other pharmacy chains or mail order. This might work for them, but it is bad for people with CVS insurance that cannot drive absurd distances and are stuck with other local pharmacies. They have done what is necessary to run a profitable pharmacy operation but it has not been a walk in the park to get there and how sustainable it is, is questionable.

Until something goes done about drug prices, the pharmacy sector will continue to get squeezed. I am waiting for the time when US drug orders get fulfilled from outside the US (since pharmacists here cost so much) but whoever is paying still pays the inflated US prices.

The insurance industry needs reform.

I do not know why insurance companies are paying doctors so much while ignoring the most critical point of healthcare. The doctor diagnoses you, and the pharmacist heals you. In most cases without medications, you will not get better. Paying pharmacists less, overworking them, and making their jobs stressful is the last thing that insurance companies should do. A dead patient is no longer going to pay insurance premiums. Lawsuits will cost insurance companies more in the long term. Treating pharmacists as expendable is not the way to go. CVS is a major cause of these problems, because they are at the forefront of insurance cost cutting.
Exactly this. Front store being about 10% of CVS's total revenue, despite front store being the most "customer facing" piece of their company, it is an unimportant department. I am surprised they are even still opening many stores with front store other than in captive tourist type locations which is about the only spot their front stores actually do any sales volume. CVS is a terrible operator of stores and a very tough operator of pharmacies.

Until something goes done about drug prices, the pharmacy sector will continue to get squeezed. Unfortunately it will probably keep getting squeezed even after something finally gets done (if anything ever gets done... given we've been hearing about it being a goal of various politicians of both parties for the past 10 years and so far prices just keep going up...). I am waiting for the time when US drug orders get fulfilled from outside the US from places where the drugs are way cheaper (since pharmacists here cost so much) but whoever is paying still pays the inflated US prices.

CVS Store upkeep is just terrible. A couple weeks ago here in Reno I went into one of the CVS locations, old smelly Longs next to the local Trader Joe's (you'd think they would try there...). Beyond the CVS repaint, the store has had no remodel since the early 80's when it opened. For a while a couple years ago it smelled like a sewer inside so I started to call it CVS/Toilet. This time it had giant freestanding cooling units all over the store and smelled musty and felt damp. Once in the store for a couple minutes despite it being 9 PM I realized it was about 90 degrees inside and the air condition had clearly gone down. So I will now call that store CVS/Oven. CVS owns this building.
Super S
Posts: 2691
Joined: April 1st, 2009, 9:27 pm
Has thanked: 11 times
Been thanked: 61 times
Status: Offline

Re: Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

Post by Super S »

I have been to a CVS store one time only when I was on a trip somewhere. It didn't really seem like anything special, good or bad, and prices were high but inline with Walgreens and Rite Aid.

I have to wonder though why they don't try a little harder on making stores presentable when you consider that they also run the pharmacies inside Target. If CVS is really as bad as everybody says they are, people would just migrate to the local Target for their prescriptions.

Portland is a market where, other than the pharmacies inside Target, CVS has no presence. Target, on the other hand, has a well-established presence. CVS is going to have to try a little harder in Portland. While Walgreens and Rite Aid both have a presence, they have been hit-or-miss and both have closed a few locations.
cjd
Assistant Store Manager
Assistant Store Manager
Posts: 624
Joined: August 18th, 2018, 6:54 am
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 6 times
Status: Offline

Re: Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

Post by cjd »

The CVS location here is in front of a Publix. The prices are high, and seem high IMO even compared to Walgreens across the street. They run on a small staff than Walgreens as well. With the location being in front of a Publix I wonder how the CVS can do much in front end sales. Their selection is also smaller than Walgreens, the only thing I really find them useful for is office supplies.

Unlike Walgreens that has a north and south location, CVS does not. The north Eckerd was closed instead of converting.

The stores CVS took over here in FL seem to all be the former Eckerd Drug stores. Most if now all of them were built in the 1990s, during the time Eckerd was moving out of the older strip malls of the 60s-70s and into stand alone stores with drive thrus. So most of them are in pretty good shape and modern.

The only new ground up CVS builds I've seen here are where there was no existing Eckerd in a town. Often it seemed Eckerd didn't bother doing stand alone builds in the smaller towns and simply closed the old locations long before CVS bought them out. It was common in the 1960s through to the early 80s that an Eckerd and Publix would be located side by side. This trend started to end when Publix started building in-store pharmacies in the 1980s.
babs
Assistant Store Manager
Assistant Store Manager
Posts: 762
Joined: December 20th, 2016, 3:08 pm
Has thanked: 19 times
Been thanked: 64 times
Status: Offline

Re: Portland, Ore. receiving first stand-alone CVS Pharmacy

Post by babs »

Super S wrote: July 29th, 2019, 6:51 am I have been to a CVS store one time only when I was on a trip somewhere. It didn't really seem like anything special, good or bad, and prices were high but inline with Walgreens and Rite Aid.

I have to wonder though why they don't try a little harder on making stores presentable when you consider that they also run the pharmacies inside Target. If CVS is really as bad as everybody says they are, people would just migrate to the local Target for their prescriptions.

Portland is a market where, other than the pharmacies inside Target, CVS has no presence. Target, on the other hand, has a well-established presence. CVS is going to have to try a little harder in Portland. While Walgreens and Rite Aid both have a presence, they have been hit-or-miss and both have closed a few locations.
The initial list of Portland locations is pretty solid. While it's not a guarantee of success, most of these locations have few nearby competitors and with Portland trying to be more of a walking oriented city, they should do well. I actually thought they might enter the Portland market by buying the Rite Aid locations but most of the remaining Rite Aids aren't all that great and tend to be more suburban than urban.
Post Reply