Hi-School Pharmacy sold to Walgreens

Our old familiar Hi-School Pharmacy, in the Milltowner Shopping Center at the northeast corner of Saltzman and Cornell, will become a shiny new Walgreens, “sometime during the second quarter of 2004,”according to Steve Oliva, president and CEO of the Hi-School Pharmacy chain. The sale was announced on August 26.

The store will remain open during the remodeling, says Michael Polzin, spokesman for Walgreens, from their headquarters in Deerfield, Illinois. After the remodel, there will still be a drive-up pharmacy window. It is undecided at this point whether the location will join seven other Portland-area Walgreens offering 24-hour service.

However, the fate of the hardware section of the store is unclear. “Hardware doesn’t fit into Walgreens’ plans,” says Oliva. “We may relocate the hardware operation to another site in the shopping center,” he says. Bales’ property manager, Ryan Egge, says they have “very long-term plans” to make changes in the center, but nothing is imminent.

According to a press release on the Walgreens website, the company, “which entered the Portland-Vancouver market in 1996, intends to operate the acquired stores with their current Hi-School Pharmacy employees. Walgreens will honor all prescription insurance programs that are currently accepted by Hi-School Pharmacy.”

For more information, visit the Hi-School Pharmacy website at hi-schoolpharmacy.com and the Walgreen's site at www.walgreens.com/about/press/othernews/082603.jhtml

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