CVS opens one month ahead of schedule

Blink and you may miss it, if you’re driving down Gulf of Mexico Drive.

But there’s a new CVS at the intersection of Bay Isles Parkway — and as of Sunday, Aug. 5, it’s open for business.

The new drug store may be hard to spot because of the vegetation buffer that Publix, which owns the site, agreed to put between the shopping center and Gulf of Mexico Drive. And more plantings are in store to create a buffer between the site and Bay Isles Parkway.

The store opened at 7 a.m. Sunday, after closing the existing store at 4 p.m. the day before.

The drug-store chain opened about a month ahead of schedule, after maintaining a steady construction schedule. Preliminary site work started less than a month after the Longboat Key Town Commission approved plans for the new CVS and Publix, on the Publix-owned site in February.

The new store offers enhanced selections of many grocery items, with produce, sliced meats and cheeses, pre-made sandwiches and more wine and beer choices. It also features a drive-thru pharmacy.
CVS is open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week — not 24 hours, as the original application stated would be a possibility.

A CVS spokesman did not return phone calls seeking comment. But according to Town Planner Steve Schield, CVS wasn’t prohibited, by town codes, from operating 24 hours a day.

By Monday, contractors had removed the sign from the old CVS and were tearing out the parking lot, just west of the old store. According to Schield, demolition of the building could begin this week. The old site will become a portion of the parking lot for the new Avenue of the Flowers store.

As for that other store? You know… Publix?

It’s still scheduled for a mid-December opening.

But with construction continuing at lightening speed, a Publix official joked last month at a “topping off” party that at this rate, the supermarket could be selling Thanksgiving turkeys on the Key.

Publix spokeswoman Shannon Patten told the Longboat Observer at the event, that a November opening would be unlikely and that the chain is still aiming for mid-December.

That means it’s still on track to sell Christmas cookies and Hanukkah latkes to Longboaters later this year.

Timeline
July 2011 — The Lakeland-based Publix Super Markets Inc. revealed plans for its Avenue of the Flowers complex, including a new Publix and CVS, when it submitted a preliminary application to the Longboat Key Planning Zoning & Building Department.

December 2011 — The Planning & Zoning Board voted to recommend the site plan and three separate outline development plans related to the Avenue of the Flowers project.

January 2012 — The Longboat Key Town Commission forwarded the three ODPs related to the project to its February meeting.

February 2012 — The commission approved the three ODPs on second reading, along with a site plan, for the project.

March 2012 — Construction work began on the new CVS.

June 2012 — The Zoning Board of Adjustment denied CVS’ request for a second 32-square-foot wall sign.

August 2012 — The new 13,000-square-foot CVS opens.