Walgreens, the nation’s largest drugstore chain, is planning to open a store at Market City Shopping Center on Kapiolani Boulevard near Kapahulu Avenue, according to center tenants.
Walgreens will be taking a space previously occupied by Fun Factory and other nearby stores. The center is anchored by a Foodland grocery store.
Walgreens is planning at least five new stores in Hawaii in an aggressive expansion over the next one to two years.
It expects to open its 18th store in the islands — a 7,750-square-foot downtown location on Hotel Street — this fall.
The retailer also will open a store in Wailuku on Maui, Lihue and a 32,000-square-foot location on Keeaumoku Street, said company spokesman Phil Caruso.
"The (Keeaumoku) store will be a high-profile Walgreens which will include features not found in our traditional drugstores," he said.
The store will include a Look Boutique, an upscale beauty bar that competes with retailers such as Sephora. Walgreens has rolled out the concept in select drugstores, most notably in its Duane Reade drugstores in Manhattan.
The Deerfield, Ill.-based company, which typically hires about 30 workers at each of its locations, operates in Ewa Beach and Honolulu, Kailua, Kaneohe, Wahiawa and Waipahu on Oahu. It also has stores in Hilo and in Kahului, Lahaina and Wailuku on Maui.
The Keeaumoku store, which will reopen early next year, was the first Walgreens to open in Hawaii in 2007.
The company typically spends about $5 million when building an average size, 14,500-square-foot, store from the ground up. Walgreens previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that it has plans to eventually open between 25 and 30 Hawaii outlets.
