(Official press release from Eckerd)
Eckerd to open three new stores in Colorado and offer residents
superior shopping experience
Clearwater, FL – Colorado residents in Denver, Littleton and Evans will celebrate the grand openings of new Eckerd stores.
“Eckerd is pleased to open three new stores in the Colorado market,” said Ray Loeffler, Eckerd Senior Group Vice President of Texas, Arizona and Colorado. “We look forward to providing our Denver, Littleton and Evans customers with high quality health care services and convenience items. Our pharmacy services include automatic prescription refills, a printed RxAdvisor with each new prescription outlining the dosage requirements and possible side effects and a selection of health care pamphlets addressing common health concerns. In the front of our store, we have an extensive merchandise selection customized for the community and state-of-the-art photo processing with digital services that will be handled with excellent customer service. We look forward to being an integral part of these communities.”
Eckerd chose Colorado, currently ranked as the eighth largest state in the U.S., based upon the area's attractive demographics and similarity to the current Florida, Texas, and Arizona markets where the company operates over 1,050 drug stores. These demographics and similarities include strong growth, steady income levels, a diverse business economy, and popularity as a tourist destination and are particularly important to retail drug store chains as they strive to reach and serve customers, such as working parents and tourist.
"This expansion into Colorado is a natural extension of our aggressive store growth strategy to build new or relocate existing stores at the pace of 250 per year for the next four years," continued Mr. Loeffler. “As announced earlier this year, Colorado, the company’s 22nd state of operation, will add additional 20 Eckerd drug stores and employ an additional 300 Colorado residents by the end of 2004.”
The three new drug stores will be located at 3490 West Alameda Avenue in Denver, 8134 South Kipling Parkway in Littleton and 3650 35th Avenue in Evans. Customers will be provided with a convenient shopping experience including drive thru pharmacy windows, accessible parking, wide aisles, easy to read aisle signs, and well-lit stores and parking areas.
About Eckerd
Eckerd Corporation, a subsidiary of J.C. Penney Company, Inc., is headquartered in Clearwater, Florida and is one of America's largest retail drug chains with over 2,775 drug stores in 23 states, over 2,035 Eckerd Express one-hour photo labs in 22 states and two pharmacy mail service facilities in two states. Eckerd Corporation’s 2002 revenue was $14.6 billion. Eckerd Corporation employs over 66,000 associates company-wide including over 16,500 pharmacy associates and 6,000 photo associates. As a community-oriented retailer, Eckerd Corporation supports the causes important to our customers and our associates by providing funding to nonprofit organizations that focus on issues relating to health care and education, which specifically benefit children, women and seniors. (For additional company information visit our website on the Internet at www.eckerd.com or the J.C.Penney website at www.jcpenney.net
