City alderpersons Tuesday will revisit the rejected CVS project at the corner of Ohio Street and Washington Avenue.
The agenda item comes before the Committee of the Whole as the request of Alderman Jim Kaplan after the the proposal was rejected last summer. Kaplan first requested the move to the Committee of the Whole last October.
The new store was planned at more than 13,000 square feet. A new CVS would have replaced its current store a half-mile east at West and Washington, and that store would close.
CVS had an option to purchase the buildings housing Racine Cyclery, American Coin, the vacant building in between and the empty cash store next door to Racine Cyclery. The store also was going to buy at least three homes and level it all to make way for the new pharmacy and parking lot.
In order to move forward with the project, the Common Council would have had to approve rezoning the parcels to a commercial designation. Several alderpersons opposed the change because the area is supposed to be a buffer zone between the commercial corridor on the west side of the intersection and the residential neighborhoods of Manree Park and West Racine to the east.
After an August 3 vote denying the necessary rezone request, Alderman Henry Perez introduced a reconsideration measure, but it was defeated Sept. 1 with the 8-7 vote in which Mayor John Dickert cast the tie-breaker, saying approval would have set “a dangerous precedent.”
Kaplan told The Journal Times he still supports CVS’ efforts to open a new store at Ohio and Washington despite the company saying they’re not going to revisit the issue.
“I guess I’m still the eternal optimist,” he is quoted as saying. “I will continue to support CVS. Even though they told me they weren’t going to come back here … that working with the city is just too crazy.”
Alderman Henry Perez represents the district in which the store would have been built, and he told the newspaper he doesn’t expect the rezoning request to go through this time around and doesn’t know if it would matter much if it did pass because working with city officials is difficult.
“It’s a good location,” his quote reads. “I don’t even know how CVS has tolerated working with the city.”
The Committee of the Whole meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Room 205 at City Hall, 730 Washington Avenue.