A new Walgreens in Downtown Crossing will offer sushi, smoothies and manicures, providing an unusual drugstore experience in the former Borders Books building.
“This is really going to be different from any other kind of drugstore you’ve been in,” said Walgreens spokesman Michael Polzin.
Polzin said the beauty department is being upgraded and may include services such as eyebrow shaping and manicures.
“It’s a really unique offering of both products and services that will make this store stand out,” he said.
One of the key features of the new Walgreens will be its upgraded grocery department.
“We will be offering an expanded selection of fresh food that will be attractive to people that work in the area, to tourists looking for a quick bite to eat and even to residents who are looking to pick up dinner for that evening,” Polzin said.
Polzin said this new branch will be a flagship store for the corporation and similar to stores in New York and Chicago.
The Walgreens will use about 23,000 square feet of the building and will occupy the first floor and basement storage of what used to be Borders, said Michael Murphy, the executive director of Clarendon Group USA, the company that owns the building.
“The second floor of the Borders space is still vacant and at this time we are actively marketing it,” he said.
Murphy said his company was excited to have Walgreens filling the space in this manner, as it will attract a variety of demographics in the Downtown Crossing area.
“We liked the idea of this particular concept Walgreens is exploring at this time, as we felt it appealed to a number of user groups,” he said.
Rosemarie Sansone, president of the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District, said via email she is excited at the prospect and the new Walgreens will be good for the community.
“This is a new concept that should bring the community together on a number of levels,” she said. “This is not your ordinary drugstore – it is a total experience and will provide an interactive experience. I think the residents, business workers, students and visitors will all find this an exciting destination.”
Polzin said the store still has some time before it will open and most likely will not open until this fall at the earliest. Murphy said he and his company were very pleased by the support they have received with the process of selling the space.
“Both the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District and the Boston Redevelopment Authorities,” he said, “have offered any assistance they could in helping us market the space.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
