Costa Mesa welcomes long-awaited Walgreens store

After nearly a decade of waiting, Costa Mesa finally has its Walgreens.

The chain drugstore’s new building at 1726 Superior Ave. hosted a grand-opening ceremony Friday with help from the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce, which brought in its big scissors for a ribbon-cutting event replete with chamber members, city officials and Walgreens staff.

The store has been in the works since at least 2007 — an especially long period when taking into account its prominent location bordered by Superior, East 17th Street and Newport Boulevard. At about 80,000 cars daily, it’s one of the busiest intersections in Orange County.

Chamber President and Chief Executive Kyle Woosley, taking his cue from Walgreens’ motto, joked that the store is “literally at the corner of happy and healthy.”

“I’ve been waiting three weeks to say that joke,” he said.

City CEO Tom Hatch also noted Walgreens’ spot, calling it “one of the best locations that we have here in Costa Mesa. This is a pretty important little corner of the world.”

Store manager Phil Reinartz said customers have been visiting steadily since the March 4 soft opening.

“It’s going to be a great store,” he said. “Every single day, we’re busier than the last. More and more people know that we’re open now.”

The store is about 12,000 square feet, with some 7,200 square feet of sales space. Walgreens shares its triangle-shaped property with a Del Taco restaurant.

Walgreens’ corner, a few blocks south of downtown Costa Mesa and the 55 Freeway’s terminus, had been virtually empty of commercial activity since 2006, when a Tower Records store there closed.

The following year, Illinois-based Walgreens bought the property for $9.7 million — a record for any Costa Mesa retail property at the time.

For years, the company told the community about its plans, even using Tower’s old street sign to hint to passing motorists that it was “coming soon.” The sign also contained the URL to a Walgreens jobs website.

Before Tower Records, the corner was home to the Harbor Roller Rink, which opened in 1950.

The rink was a local icon, boasting an arched, hangar-like roof. When Tower Records moved in, it found new uses for the distinctive building.

But after Tower closed, the vacant structure became a graffiti magnet. In 2013, the old building — where old-timers recalled the smells of floor wax and leather rental skates — was demolished.

The new Walgreens was built in its place.