Arbor Drugs - freestanding locations

[buckhead]

Arbor Drugs before its acquistion by CVS had stores in Michigan, the Carolinas, Georgia and elsewhere, but I have never seen any examples of their freestanding location building designs. Did Arbor have a distinctive/uniform style for the exterior of their stores? Walgreen's, Rite Aid, Eckerd, CVS over the years have developed a number of styles, some which are customized a bit for the particular location. I would be interested in seeing any images that might be available for Arbor Drugs; I'm not having much luck finding them online, although I did find a few:

http://hamtramck.lib.mi.us/hhc/pictures/picture-18.jpg

http://hamtramck.lib.mi.us/hhc/pictures/picture-19.jpg

[submariner]

Arbor Drugs before its acquistion by CVS had stores in Michigan, the Carolinas, Georgia and elsewhere, but I have never seen any examples of their freestanding location building designs. Did Arbor have a distinctive/uniform style for the exterior of their stores? Walgreen's, Rite Aid, Eckerd, CVS over the years have developed a number of styles, some which are customized a bit for the particular location. I would be interested in seeing any images that might be available for Arbor Drugs; I'm not having much luck finding them online, although I did find a few:

http://hamtramck.lib.mi.us/hhc/pictures/picture-18.jpg

http://hamtramck.lib.mi.us/hhc/pictures/picture-19.jpg

The newest ones I remember: Allen Park at 15240 Southfield Road, http://maps.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.r18v ... &encType=1

and one at 13545 Eureka in Southgate, http://maps.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.r0zt ... &encType=1
which Was an Arbor up until right around the opening, I don't think it ever opened as an Arbor, though I might be wrong.

But to answer the question, I never really noticed a standard design, just a typical size

[TenPoundHammer]

Almost every Arbor Drugs I remember looked like picture #1. There were two in Bay City, MI that looked just like that, both opened around the same time. I'm pretty sure they made the transition to CVS/Pharmacy, albeit briefly; one is now a carpet store, and one's a Dollar General. I'll try to get a picture of the carpet store one sometime.

Another one in Grand Blanc, MI -- one of the only ones I've ever seen that utilized the "corner drugstore" technique popularized by Rite Aid and Walgreen's of late -- was also a CVS for about three seconds. It's currently (surprise!) a Rite Aid, even though there're THREE other Rite Aids within two miles (one of which is way out in the boonies, far removed from any other retail). Oddly, the Rite Aid in the former Arbor/CVS looks just like it did in its Arbor days, save for the red Rite Aid signage (no pentagonal logo here!).

Is it just me, or did 95% of the Arbor-CVS conversions go "splat" after about a year? The only CVS locations I'm aware of in Michigan are in Grand Rapids, plus a stray former Osco in Menominee (which was apparently Michigan's only Osco for nearly a decade).

[submariner]

Is it just me, or did 95% of the Arbor-CVS conversions go "splat" after about a year?

Maybe up north, but CVS is doing well in SE Michigan.