CVS to Take Over Corner of Orange Grove and Sam Rittenburg

CHARLESTON - A new is CVS planned for the corner of Sam Rittenburg Boulevard and Orange Grove Road.

The old Burger King on the site that closed about a year ago, according to Charleston Planning officials, and a shuttered commercial building next door that had housed restaurants in the past will be torn down to make way for the new drug store.

The redevelopment of the spot will also see the implementation of yet another concept outlined in the Northbridge Development Plan created more than a decade ago by area residents working together with then District 9 City Councilman Paul Tinkler. The project will reroute the state controlled frontage road that currently dumps traffic only a few feet from the traffic light at the busy intersection through the CVS parking lot to allow drivers to enter Orange Grove Road farther back from the intersection.

"It will make it much safer for everybody, not just for CVS customers, but for folks heading further down the frontage road," Charleston Planning Division Director Christopher Morgan said. "And CVS will be building the road so the city doesn't have to."

The project is currently waiting on official paperwork from the state allowing the modifications to the frontage road, Morgan said. All the involved city departments, including the Architectural Review Board have already signed off on the project.

Turns from Orange Grove directly onto the frontage road aren't allowed already, so drivers have been using the old Burger King parking lot to get to the and other places located along the frontage road for years, but drivers heading toward Orange Grove on the road emerge at the point where Orange Grove splits into multiple lanes, making it difficult for those drivers to get across the dedicated right turn lane to either continue down Orange Grove Road or make a left turn onto Sam Rittenburg.

"By virtue of it being further back it makes it easier for drivers to get into the proper lane," Morgan said.

Other ideas from the Northbridge Plan that have come to fruition include plantings in the medians where Sam Rittenburg Boulevard and Old Towne Road merge and the Bi-Lo shopping center on Sam Rittenburg that replaced a defunct car dealership. The city is also in the process of developing a new park at the foot of the Cosgrove Bridge, another concept contained in the plan.

Morgan said work on the CVS project should begin once the state has approved the frontage road changes.