CVS construction to begin March 1
By Ken Powers Community Reporter

Northborough - Out with the old, prepare for the new - that's what happened in the center of town in early February as the CVS building at 14-24 West Main St. was taken down and the site was prepared for the new building, which will be erected this spring and opened by the fall.

"The demolition went as expected," Northborough Building Inspector William Farnsworth said. "It's a complex process for several reasons. They took the building down slowly so no debris would end up out on Pierce Street and they had to then separate the debris for removal."

Farnsworth said he visited the site several times during the week of the demolition and spoke with the foreman in charge. He said his chief concern was the wall of the store that ran parallel to Pierce Street, just a few feet from moving traffic.

"That was the concern, that

" when that wall came down it was brought down into the site, not out onto the roadway," Farnsworth said.

The demolition was left to the expertise of Ricciardi Bros. Inc. of Worcester, a firm that has taken down many buildings. Ricciardi Bros. will also be doing all the site work, including the sidewalks, curbing, landscaping and lighting.

"Our plan is to have all the demolition site work done by the third week of February," said Mike O'Hara of Northborough Plaza Center, LLC, the owners of the property. "The building's down, but there is still a lot that has to be done to get the site ready to be an active construction site again."

O'Hara said D.F. Pray Inc. of Seekonk has been selected to construct the new building.

"Our plan is to turn the site over to D.F. Pray on March 1 and they'll put the footings in that week, weather permitting, and then we'll be off and running," O'Hara said.

O'Hara said he expected construction to take between 22 and 24 weeks, which would put the completion of the project around mid- August.

"The guys at Pray build dozens of these a year, so they go up pretty quick," O'Hara said.

O'Hara said he is excited to see the final outcome of the project.

"There are a lot of CVSs around, but none look like this one is going to look," O'Hara said. "The colonialstyle building, I think, really captures the character of downtown Northborough.

"We went through a lot of meetings with the architectural review board and the design review committee and those meetings really shaped the exterior of the building in terms of color and clapboard and trim," he added. "I think the residents are really going to like having this building in the center of town."

The process to remove and rebuild the facility began May 22, 2006, when Northborough Plaza Center petitioned the town's Zoning Board of Appeals for a special permit and site plan approval to raze the building, which was built in 1955.

The CVS space in the old building, which also housed over the years a café, drycleaning business and florist, was 8,800 square feet. That space will increase to 13,041 square feet and the building will have a second floor, but it will be a storage-only space of 1,900 square feet.