Walgreens says baby boomers bring them to Fallbrook

Fallbrook is scheduled to receive a brand-new 10,000-square-foot Walgreens drug store this Fall.

Slated to begin construction in the spring at the corner of South Mission Road and Clemmens Lane, the new store will be positioned directly across the street from Rite Aid.

With construction beginning soon, many residents have pondered the reasoning behind another drugstore being added to town, since there are four others within a two-mile radius.

“The reason we are opening so many stores, and the reason why we are opening a Walgreens in [Fallbrook], is primarily because of the aging baby boomers,” said Carol Hively, spokesperson for Walgreens corporate office. “We are finding that the demand of prescription drugs is increasing dramatically.”

Nationwide, according to Hively, Walgreens opens a new store on the average of every 18 hours. Corporate headquarters, located in Deerfield, IL, says the chain expects to have a total of 7,000 stores by 2010.

Along with baby boomers needing medication, people are also living longer, explained Hively. For these reasons, she says market demand is high.

“We are trying to meet that demand,” said Hively.

Though the services that Walgreens provides are quite extensive, they are primarily a pharmacy. The new Fallbrook Walgreens will offer a drive-thru window for convenient prescription drop-off and pick-up.

Customers will also have access to its online pharmacy and automated phone refills. Monthly medication refills, explained Hively, can be done automatically, so customers need not call into the drugstore.

The remainder of the store merchandise can be best described as convenience items, with a mini grocery section dedicated to one area. A digital photo department will be onsite, as will an inventory of basic home computer supplies and printer cartridge ink refills.

“This is good for people who work from home,” said Hively. “We do offer a little bit of everything.”

On the average, Walgreens claims to stock approximately 25,000 different items in each store.

Walgreens was founded in 1901 and claims to be the “nation’s largest retail pharmacy chain.” In December, they reported a total of $5.5 billion in sales, a seven-percent increase over December of 2006.

It was reported that they filled a total of 583 million prescriptions in their stores in the fiscal year 2007.