GIANT OPENS TEMPORARY PHARMACY

MATTHEW W. EVANS

WASHINGTON -- Giant Food's fourth freestanding pharmacy, opened here this month, will be shuttered in 2002.

And in the meantime, the Landover, Md.-based chain's second-oldest supermarket, located across the street, will be demolished.

The end result will be a 50,000-square-foot Giant Food combination food-pharmacy unit built from the ground up on the site of the old grocery store. Once the new, modern unit is operating in two years, Giant's freestanding pharmacy, located at 3400 Wisconsin Ave., will be converted into another retail use run by an outside operator.

"This temporary move will allow us to continue to fulfill the [pharmacy] need in the neighborhood, which is mostly seniors," Giant spokesman Barry Scher told SN.

Giant's retail pharmacy is housed in an existing building. The previous tenant, CVS, Woonsocket, R.I., moved 10 blocks down the street, according to Scher.

Giant owns the two shopping centers on either side of the street, so the juggling act has so far proved "not too costly," Scher noted. "Nothing's free but all we had to do was move in [the freestanding unit], do some re-fixturing and turn on the lights," he said. "It wasn't a very major remodel because there was a pharmacy in there."

The new freestanding pharmacy, at about 11,000 square feet, offers full prescription services, film processing, and a wide variety of health and beauty care items, the retailer said. The old food store, without the pharmacy, is about 18,000 square feet and was built in 1953, according to the company.

This will be the company's second food-pharmacy combination in Washington. Scher expects the new combo to house about 11,000 square feet of pharmacy and HBC space. The other combo is located at 7th and O streets.

The other three freestanding pharmacies run by the retailer are located in Alexandria, Va., and in two Maryland towns, Bethesda and Salisbury.