Pharmacy plan riles up St. Louis Park neighborhood

A St. Louis Park neighborhood is in an uproar over efforts by CVS Caremark to build a pharmacy in their residential area, even though city officials told the company last spring that the plans were unlikely to be approved.

About 200 residents who live near the intersections of Minnetonka Boulevard and Vernon and Webster Avenues attended a meeting late last month set up by a local developer who said he represented CVS. According to people who attended the meeting, Kevin McGhee of the Velmeir Companies office in Bloomington told the crowd that CVS had purchase agreements with the owners of seven homes on the site, contingent upon the city approving plans to build a pharmacy there.

But last spring, St. Louis Park officials who were approached about the project told the developers that the area was zoned residential, said Kevin Locke, the city's director of community development. The city's new comprehensive plan also designates the corner for residential use, Locke said, and planning officials told developers that the zoning is unlikely to be changed.

"Usually that is the end of the story," Locke said. "That's what's unusual. They wanted to keep pursuing this and show the neighborhood plans and see what reaction they got there."

McGhee declined to comment to the Star Tribune, referring questions to CVS headquarters in Rhode Island. A spokeswoman there said the company doesn't comment on prospective store locations.

A show of hands at the neighborhood meeting indicated that residents are overwhelmingly opposed to the development. Sue Sanger, the City Council member who represents the area, said the surprise meeting and the behind-the-scenes negotiations with homeowners have neighbors on alert, even though McGhee indicated at the end of the meeting that he probably would recommend to CVS that the project be abandoned.

"The secrecy around this has not engendered a lot of goodwill in the neighborhood," Sanger said. "We're not opposed to CVS. I volunteered that they could sit down with the city and find an appropriate commercial area. It's this particular location that's a concern."

Kathryn McKeen, chairwoman of the Birchwood Neighborhood Association, said she got a call from a property acquisition representative with CVS a week before the neighborhood meeting, telling her of plans to remove seven homes and put in a pharmacy.

"I was quite shocked," she said. "The guy on the phone made it sound like they had already confirmed this with the city, and I felt this was not an accurate representation of what was going on."

Vernon Avenue already gets spillover traffic from drivers who leave Hwy. 100 and cut through the neighborhood at rush hour, but a pharmacy would raise noise and traffic to new levels, McKeen said. Sketches presented at the meeting showed the pharmacy facing the residential neighborhood. All traffic, including semitrailer trucks that would deliver goods to the store, would enter or leave from Vernon, Webster or an alley that runs between the two streets.

McKeen said she's concerned about night lighting, garbage, the removal of mature trees and the leveling of the hilly site that acts as a buffer. A park for small children flanks one of the areas where traffic would enter the parking lot, which McKeen believes would pose a possible hazard.

Despite McGhee's comment that he would suggest CVS drop its plans for the corner, neighbors said they intend to keep up the pressure on both the company and the city. The neighborhood association has written letters to CVS and about 160 people have signed a petition objecting to the possible development.

"This would be a thumb stuck in the eye of the neighborhood," he said.