What Should Be: AAA/CVS

We learned in June, 2011 that CVS Pharmacy hoped to demolish the Lindell Avenue AAA building for a cookie-cutter CVS. They had moved on from a location a couple blocks west when the neighborhood association there rejected their proposal. When they moved on, it was feared that a deal had already been struck, but Alderman Terry Kennedy responded to the citizen uproar and put on the brakes. Mayor Francis Slay weighed in. A committee he convened has so far rejected the AAA demolition for a new CVS as well. However, nothing stands in the way of demolition should the alderman, or committee change their minds. Eight months after the news broke, CVS continues to look for another location. The proposal below is part of our What Should Be series and presents both CVS and the city a way forward: a new, urban CVS and keeping the AAA building as well.

- Alex, Editor

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Fresh off the announcement of the famed Phillips 66/Del Taco saucer’s apparent preservation and reuse, St. Louis should not forget the other architecturally significant round building currently in danger by suburban redevelopment. The proposed development would replace the elegant and ovular AAA building with a presumably generic, cookie cutter big box store. This is yet another in a slew of assaults on Lindell Blvd- the best cluster of mid-century modern architecture in St. Louis. In the past few years alone, multiple buildings have been razed, defaced, or threatened, amplifying the need to preserve the remainder of the corridor.