CVS rejected at 49th and Dodge

The glum countdown to the closing of a longtime Dundee bar came to an abrupt halt Tuesday when the Omaha City Council voted to reject plans to build a pharmacy in its place.

“We've got a party going on in here,” said Eric Franz, a bartender at the 49'r Lounge. “Pretty much everyone who was at the council meeting is here now.”

The council voted 4-3 against a plan to build a 13,225-square-foot CVS pharmacy and store at 49th and Dodge Streets.

Councilmen Pete Festersen and Chris Jerram, who each represents part of Dundee, said overwhelming neighborhood opposition convinced them to vote no.

Residents had complained that the store, which would abut a residential neighborhood, would look like a box with a parking lot that was too large.

They said the store would cause major traffic problems for commuters who take Dodge Street back and forth to work.

Festersen said the CVS proposal was “not consistent with what we're trying to do in Dundee.”

Had the proposal been approved, CVS would have purchased and torn down several buildings on the site, including the 49'r, four other commercial buildings and several houses.

Bar patrons had lamented for months about the pending demise of the 49'r. Nearly 2,900 people joined a “Save the 49'r” Facebook page created earlier this year. The bar has been around since about World War II, Franz said.

Larry Jobeun, an attorney representing CVS, said opening the pharmacy at 49th and Dodge Streets would have created 25 jobs as well as millions in city sales tax and property tax revenue.

He called the council's vote “disheartening” and said CVS likely wouldn't try to put a store in a different Dundee location.

“They're not going to move down the street,” Jobeun said.

Councilmen Ben Gray and Thomas Mulligan joined in opposing the project. Jean Stothert, Franklin Thompson and Garry Gernandt voted in favor.

In turning down CVS, the council rejected the advice of the Planning Board, which had voted 5-2 in favor of the plan.

Walgreens currently dominates the local pharmacy market. CVS entered the Omaha market earlier this year with stores at 144th Street and West Maple Road and 108th and Fort Streets.

The company has said it will open three more stores in the Omaha area by the first quarter of 2011.

They are at 144th and U Streets in Millard, Harlan Drive and Galvin Road in Bellevue and Sixth Street and Kanesville Boulevard in Council Bluffs.

Plans for other stores have emerged in the city's planning process, although a current number was not available Tuesday.

Ten people spoke out against the CVS proposal at a public hearing before the council vote. They said the building's design didn't fit in with the historic nature of Dundee.

Jobeun said CVS complied with the urban design goals that the City of Omaha has worked for years to establish.

He said the complany also worked with neighborhood groups to bring the kind of store residents would like and use.

“CVS wants to be a good neighbor,” Jobeun said.

Jenny Allgood, who lives in the area, said she was “ecstatic” at the council's action.

She spent the past weeks collecting about 1,800 signatures from people opposed to the store.

“I would like to see local development there,” Allgood said, “just not the complete destruction of our history.”

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