I am not especially into dance music – especially of the techno variety. There is a reason, however, that I own pretty much every release by British DJ duo Simian Mobile Disco. And that’s that it makes for really terrific running music. The rhythmic, gritty, analogue recordings make the perfect accompaniment to hustling down the sidewalk with your headphones on – it’s not so repetitive as to get boring quickly but it’s also deeply grounded in fat, pulsing rhythms. SMD’s epic pounders are designed to keep raving party animals (of which I am not one) up all night on the dance floor so it is no surprise that it also works well for other exhaustion challenging activities.
Still, as a non-clubber I don’t have much use for SMD’s music outside an accompaniment to the occasional run. While Delicacies does present a fresh, bold take on techno music, it still lacks the subtlety and intricacy of an electronic record like say, Cosmogramma. Delicacies will be a perfect album for what I can only imagine is a spectacular live DJ set by the band, or if you are like me, something for just getting the heart racing. For average listening though (for which I doubt that this album is even intended) it likely won’t hold a great deal of appeal.
Drugstore Plans Major Expansion into Raleigh, Durham, N.C., Area.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News October 21, 1999 | Price, Dudley Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Oct. 21 — RALEIGH, N.C. — Walgreen, the nation’s largest drugstore chain based on sales, is planning a major expansion into the Triangle.
The pharmacy giant, which is based in Deerfield, Ill., has options on seven sites in Raleigh and Durham for stores expected to set up a battle for customers with market leaders Eckerd, CVS and Kerr Drug.
“We’re aggressively looking at sites in the Raleigh-Durham area, but we don’t have anything confirmed yet,” said company spokeswoman Yvette Venable.
But Cynthia Hastings, vice president for project development for Olympia Development of Dunedin, Fla., said options have been taken on three sites in Raleigh and four in Durham to build 15,000-square-foot Walgreen pharmacies. site capital auto auction
Hastings said Walgreen ultimately would like as many as 20 stores in the Triangle and that the company would try to open the first seven stores by 2003. Hastings declined to name where six of the stores would be but confirmed that one site under contract is a 4.5-acre tract occupied by Leith Toyota at 4800 Capital Blvd. in Raleigh.
Plans call to move the car dealership several miles north on Capital Boulevard to a site now occupied by the Capital Auto Auction at 8005 Capital Blvd., she said. The dealership would move in about two years.
Olympia also has a a deal to move a Wendy’s restaurant at Capital Boulevard and New Hope Road several hundred feet north onto the site of the current dealership. That move would give Walgreen a store location at the intersection.
Schematic plans for the site also call for a bank and grocery store but Hastings said they may not be built. go to web site capital auto auction
“Everything is just conception at this point,” Hastings said.
New Walgreen stores would mark a return of the company to the Triangle. Walgreen operated stores in Durham and Raleigh for years, including a Raleigh store in the ground floor of the Raleigh Building on Fayetteville Street.
But the company pulled out of North Carolina in 1969 to concentrate on its core markets in Florida and the Midwest, Venable said. In the past 10 years, Walgreen has mounted a huge expansion.
Since 1993, the company has grown from 1,836 stores to 2,831 in 39 states and Puerto Rico. The company re-entered North Carolina when it opened five stores in Charlotte last year.
Walgreen had revenue of $17.8 billion last year, the most sales of any drugstore chain.
Jim Frederick, senior pharmacy editor for Drug Store News, a New York-based industry publication, said Walgreen’s entry into the Triangle sets the stage for a heated battle for customers with market leaders Eckerd, Kerr and CVS.
“I don’t know if there is room for everybody,” Frederick said. “Walgreen is going to have an impact on that market, especially with seven sites.
“Their typical operating pattern is to go into a market in a big way and try to sew up as many quality sites as they can and make a quick run for the top one or two market slots,” Frederick said. “They want to be No. 1 or at least No. 2.” According to Scarborough Research Corp., the current drug store leaders in the Triangle are Florida-based Eckerd with 20 percent of the prescription market; CVS with 12 percent, and Kerr Drug with 11 percent.
Eckerd, a 2,800-store chain with about 70 locations in the Triangle, and CVS, which has 4,200 stores including about 30 in the Triangle, have been waging a fierce battle for market share in the region since 1997. That’s when CVS, which is based in Rhode Island, entered the Triangle with its purchase of Revco D.S. and began building large stand-alone stores in a challenge to Eckerd.
Eckerd and Raleigh-based Kerr Drugs had been powerful competitors before J.C. Penney bought Kerr in 1995 and added Eckerd a year later. The Federal Trade Commission later ordered Penney to divest several of its Triangle stores, which resulted in the New Kerr Drug chain. Durham-based New Kerr now has about 30 stores in the area.
Frederick said it was too early to predict how Walgreen would fare in the Triangle.
“It’s not going to be a cakewalk for Walgreen in Raleigh-Durham,” Frederick said.
One expected winner in the fight are customers, who could see lower prices, improved customer service and an expanded array of products, Frederick said.
Price, Dudley
