THE LOOP — The Loop now has 10 corners of happy and healthy.
Walgreens opened a new store Tuesday at State and Madison streets, its 10th in the Loop. The new store marks a return to 2 N. State St. for the ubiquitous Deerfield-based pharmacy, which ran a store at the busy corner for 50 years before moving out in 1999.
The new Walgreens store replaces a Sears.
"From the street, the brightly illuminated store presents windows that are ‘walls of glass,’ ruby structural glass paneling and polished stone columns," the Chicago Daily Tribune wrote when Walgreens first opened a store there in 1949. "Food preparation equipment includes a machine that manufactures ice cubes that are released at the touch of a button, and a machine that takes whole oranges and automatically gets the juice from them.”
The new store at 2 N. State St. is decidedly less fancy, with a massive flagship store located just a few blocks north at State and Randolph streets. It's "not unusual" for Walgreens to have so many stores in "high-trafficked, urban, dense areas," company spokesman Phil Caruso previously told DNAinfo Chicago.
"Surprisingly enough it’s a different customer base," Caruso said in August, when the new store was announced. "If you work in an office building on Madison, you’re not going to walk to Randolph. Walgreens is about convenience."
The new store is also located a few blocks from existing stores at Michigan Avenue and Washington Street, Michigan and Adams Street, and Monroe and Clark streets. Conversely, Walgreens competitor CVS runs eight stores in the Loop. Starbucks, while not a pharmacy, is notoriously everywhere and is preparing to open its fourth store on a four-block stretch of Michigan Avenue.
The new Walgreens store at State and Madison will be open from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays, and 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends. The pharmacy will be open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends.
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