New Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy will be a $500,000 project for Du Quoin

The Du Quoin City Council on Monday night inked a business development agreement with the owner of Medicine Shoppe Pharmacies that will essentially give back 75 percent of the first $50,000 paid in new real estate taxes to the owner after the store is built. The other 25 percent of the taxes paid will go into the TIF district.

Of that $50,000, the first $5,000 will remediate an underground fuel tank issue on the property.

It's a helpful incentive in what is expected to be a $500,000 project to bring a new pharmacy to the intersection of South Washington and East Main Streets. The estimated cost includes the acquisition of the Du Quoin Beauty College property from the Du Quoin State Bank and a vacant lot immediately south of the Beauty College on which Erwin Florist was located decades ago.

The property acquisition stops short of the Appuhn properties to the south.

The $500,000 also includes demolition of the Beauty College, remediation of the modest environmental issue and construction of the new building.

Area Medicine Shoppe Pharmacies are owned by franchisee Don Scriber.

Du Quoin Economic Development director Jeff Ashauer said he does not know when the project will be started, nor does he know the design or look of the new pharmacy. The only thing we have are pictures of Medicine Shoppe Pharmacies in Mount Vernon and Harrisburg -- both fairly new.

What is known is that the building will be a modern 3,000 sq. ft. store with a drive-through and parking for at least 10 cars. It is not known whether all access will be from the South Washington Street side or some of it from the Franklin Street side.

The existing Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy building at 207 East Main is owned by CSGS of Kirkwood, Mo. and underwent an extensive remodeling two years ago. When the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy acquired Medicap Pharmacies in 2003, which benefitted from a new location near the intersection of South Washington & East Jackson Streets, all of the business was merged into the downtown Du Quoin location.

In its only other action, the council voted to take the cap of $25,000 off community benefit raffles. Most communities no longer put a cap on the value of a raffle.