DATE: Friday, August 8, 1997                TAG: 9708080656

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   43 lines

WALGREENS WILL ENTER LOCAL MARKET

Walgreen Co. plans to enter the Hampton Roads drugstore market next summer with four stores, the company announced this week.

The move is part of a plan to boost the Deerfield, Ill.-based chain's number of outlets to 3,000 by the year 2000, a company official said. The chain is the nation's fourth largest with more than 2,300 stores. Walgreen ranked first in sales with $11.8 billion last year.

The move makes Walgreen the latest foot soldier in Hampton Roads' prescription drug wars.

Eckerd Corp. recently purchased 79 area Revco D.S. Inc. stores from CVS Corp., boosting its number of stores nationwide to 2,800. CVS, which had 4,000 stores and sold $11 billion last year, was forced to sell the Hampton Roads' Revco stores when it purchased the chain to satisfy anti-trust concerns.

Walgreen plans to open 280 stores next year and will enter other southeastern U.S. marketsincluding Charlotte, N.C; Birmingham, Ala.; Lafayette, La.; and Jackson, Miss. The company moved into Richmond last year.

Locations for the new Hampton Roads stores were not disclosed, but the chain expects to add stores on the Southside and the Peninsula each year, said company spokesman Michael Polzin. Stores are expected to open in other Virginia markets in the next several years.

``We plan to steadily increase our presence in Hampton Roads,'' Polzin said.

In addition to Eckerd, the region already is served by Rite-Aid, several grocery store chains and some independent drug stores. Polzin said the need for more drugstores comes from the aging baby boomers and the industry's small profit margin that is driving small, independent stores out of business.

Walgreen also has targeted employers and health maintenance organizations.

Eric Bosshard, an analyst with Midwest Research in Cleveland, said Walgreen has been aggressive in each market it enters, and ``they're pretty good at wrestling market share away from competitors.''

Bosshard said the company may have chosen this time to move into Hampton Roads because of problems Eckerd has had with patients' prescription records.

All of the new Walgreen stores will be in stand-alone buildings with drive-through windows and computerized prescription systems. Walgreen, which invented the milkshake, will not have soda fountains.

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