Chain drug store giant CVS has a date this afternoon with the city’s Planning Commission. At today’s meeting, CVS will present plans to demolish the landmark mid-century modern AAA Building (1977, W.A. Sarmiento) on Lindell Boulevard for a new store. Read more at NextSTL.
Already Mayor Francis Slay — who was quick to take the Board of Aldermen to task over the demolition of the spaceship-like Phillips 66 station at Council Plaza — has posted a statement on his site sympathetic to preservation:
I believe that the loss of any distinctive element of our built environment must be justified by a new good at least its equal. It is not my current impression that the amenity of a new chain drug store within blocks of a couple of existing ones or the very ordinary design of the proposed building is such a good. I will, therefore, ask my office’s representative on the Planning Commission to cast a vote against the project today. And I urge the other members of the Commission to, at least, to consider doing the same until the developer has been more directly engaged.