Hi-School Pharmacy, a well-known Vancouver company that sold its local pharmacies to Walgreens a dozen years ago, is returning to the city this fall with a new pharmacy and adjoining hardware store.
The new pharmacy, at 3200 N.E. 52nd St. in Minnehaha, is set to open in September, said John Crawford, chief operating officer of the company that still operates pharmacies in 30 Oregon and Southwest Washington communities. At 11,000 square feet, it will be similar to traditional Hi-School pharmacies. It will also offer health and beauty products, as well as beer and wine.
“It’s a little upscale concept for us,” said Crawford.
The company also will operate a 6,200-square-foot hardware store next door, and customers will be able to walk from one store to the other inside.
The company is holding a hiring event from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and Thursday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the new store. It is seeking people for full- and part-time positions in management, variety, pharmacy and hardware. Applications are at www.hspcareers.com.
Crawford said he couldn’t speak to future expansion plans, but said many people have hoped for the company’s return.
“This is our first venture back,” he said of the new Vancouver store. “It’s good to come back since I live here and have been with Hi-School Pharmacy 40-plus years. Many people have asked, ‘When will you have a store back in Vancouver?’ “
Hi-School Pharmacy’s comeback marks the end of a 12-year noncompete agreement it made with Walgreens as a condition of the sale of its 11 Clark County stores to the nation’s largest drugstore chain. At the time, Hi-School operated 42 retail stores throughout its service area that generally combined prescription drug sales with general retail goods and Tru-Value hardware outlets. It was then the nation’s 31st-largest drugstore chain.
The choice of Minnehaha for the new store made sense since the company owns the building, which had been home to the ReTails Thrift Store, operated by the Humane Society for Southwest Washington, before that store moved to a larger location.
Even after the Walgreens deal took it out of the local pharmacy business, Hi-School Pharmacy remained in the retail hardware business. The company owns Battle Ground ACE Hardware, and Crawford said he is owner of Main Street ACE Hardware in Vancouver and co-owner of Salmon Creek ACE Hardware.
