The Painesville City CVS will close on June 19, and city officials recently took action to ensure that a small box discount store will not immediately take its place.
Painesville City Council approved a 12-month moratorium on approving new small box discount stores in a 6-0 vote on May 20 with Councilwoman Lori DiNallo excused on leave. The meeting’s city manager report said that officials believe that two of the city’s pharmacy stores may close in the near future, creating space for the discount stores.
City Manager Doug Lewis later confirmed that one of those pharmacies is the CVS, which is located at 265 E. Erie St.
“What we wanted to do was take a look at what were the best and highest uses for those buildings, and hopefully stop any of the discount stores from moving in to have those buildings rented, but look at what the other options are and where we do want some of the discount stores within the city of Painesville,” Lewis said.
“We’ll be looking at a variety of things, as to the property itself, what it’s conducive to, what we would like to see in there, what we want to see in the central business district actually because right now, with the $100 million of new improvements in the downtown, it opens up a number of additional options for uses of those buildings,” he added later.
The legislation defines small box discount stores as stores that are no bigger than 20,000 square feet and that sell a limited number of goods “that generally cost less than $10 or cost 20 percent to 40 percent lower than the same type of good, products or merchandise sold at grocery or drug stores.”
“The city and surrounding areas are saturated with small box retail stores and additional locations will compete with existing local grocery stores,” stated the city manager’s report. “This strategy of saturating the market with small box discount stores makes it impossible for local grocery stores to stay open, or for new local grocery stores to open and thrive.”
The legislation listed other concerns with small-discount box stores, stating that their goods are more expensive per ounce than other retailers, that less than 15 percent of their shelf space is typically used for fresh produce and that profits go to corporate offices instead of local communities.
The legislation also stated that these stores “employ fewer people at lower wages than grocery stores, often face class-action lawsuits for violating fair labor standards and lean heavily on taxpayers to subsidize their employees’ healthcare.”
“Although small box discount stores may fill a need in places that lack basic retail services, there is growing evidence that small box discount stores are not only a byproduct of economic distress – they are a cause of it,” the legislation added elsewhere.
Lewis said that three such stores currently operate in the city.
City officials will use the 12-month moratorium to review Painesville’s planning, zoning, business and sign regulations, the city manager’s report stated. It will then determine rules for these businesses, including spacing and the number of permitted stores.
The city also intends to review the impact of small-box discount stores on traffic, noise, litter and safety, as well as the stores’ architectural regulations and hours of operation, it added.
Painesville joins a list of communities in Ohio that have addressed the role of discount stores. The Ohio Newsroom reported in March that Broadview Heights, Canton, Findlay and Maumee instituted discount store moratoriums in recent years, while Cleveland, Akron and Brunswick have set other regulations in place for those businesses.
As for the customers of the soon-to-be-closed Painesville City CVS, a sign posted to its entrance referred customers to the company’s store at 1890 N. Ridge Road in Painesville Township. That store is located 2.3 miles to the east, according to the CVS website.
The pharmacy chain announced in 2021 that it would close approximately 300 of its almost 10,000 U.S. stores each year from 2022 to 2024. CVS planned to work on its online and healthcare offerings, CNBC reported at the time.
CVS acquired the Erie Street property in 2014, according to the Lake County Auditor’s website. Before that, it operated a Painesville City store at what later became the Dollar Tree at 152 E. Washington St.
