Curtis Pharmacy moving on plans to move into former Foodland
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Patients are served in September 2018 in Curtis Pharmacy’s Canton Township location.
The shuttered Foodland on Henderson Avenue in Washington, with a new roof, is the future home of Curtis Pharmacy and a grocery operated by Countryside Deli.
Curtis Pharmacy is taking the high road – literally.
Besieged by flooding twice in seven months, including a devastating deluge in February, the pharmacy will be moving to the former Foodland store about three-quarters of a mile up Henderson Avenue. The current Curtis location, in Canton Township near the Washington line, sits at or below the flood line of Chartiers Creek. The grocery, which closed in December, is in the city on higher ground.
“If all goes right, we’ll be finished by the first of November,” said Eric Cushey, pharmacist and co-owner with his wife, Tina. A second Curtis Pharmacy, the original one, is still operating on Main Street in Claysville.
Curtis will not occupy the entire Foodland building, which Cushey said “is all torn apart inside” and is being remodeled. The Cusheys’ business, in fact, will take up only about one-third of the space. Countryside Deli, which is near the current pharmacy on Henderson, will construct a grocery store inside the remaining space.
Now they will be true neighbors, in a duplex-sense.
The arrangement, apparently, is common knowledge. A number of local residents seemed to know it is going to happen.
“That’s been in the plans for a while,” said Scott Jordan, manager of the deli, which will retain its original shop in the plaza down the street. “Customers can use the pharmacy and the deli in one trip.”
Operating near Chartiers Creek, Eric Cushey acknowledged, has been a concern. Flooding hit the pharmacy hard in July 2017, then even harder in February.
“We had no out-front merchandise after the floods, just prescriptions, because fixtures were damaged so badly.”
Cushey said Thursday the pharmacy was granted a partial building permit at the old Foodland, but plumbing and electrical plans had not been approved. He said that could take as long as 30 days. The roof, in the meantime, has been replaced. Yet there is still a lot of work ahead.
“We’re going to get started by putting a new entrance into the building next week,” Cushey said. “Once we get the opening cut, we have to break up the middle third of the building. The concrete is sagging. Evidently, a storm drain that runs under the building is broken.”
Cushey essentially splits time between the two Curtis locations. The pharmacy in Claysville is well established, open for more than 100 years and operated by only four owners.
He pointed out that it isn’t a multi-generational family business, but “a community pharmacy nonetheless.”
One that will be taking the high road in Washington.