By Linda Taaffe

National pharmacy chain must relocate side door entrance and get city approval before moving forward

Design rather than size postponed the Walgreen’s project slated for downtown Los Altos last week. The Los Altos City Council sent Walgreens’ Second Street store plans back to the drawing board May 11. The holdup? A corner door entrance.

The national pharmacy chain will have to move its entrance from the Second Street corner to the front of the building that faces the parking lot - a change that will make the store more accessible, according to the city council.

The changes will mean more delays while the company gets another approval for the new plans from the Architectural and Site Control Committee before coming back to the council for a final go-ahead. The company must also add more stalls to the parking lot redesign. Walgreen’s first applied for a project permit last January.

Some supporters said they feared that the delay could kill the project.

Walgreen’s spokesman Tom Souza was unavailable for comment about how the delay could affect the project.

The store’s size had appeared as if it would be the key issue leading up to Tuesday’s council meeting.

Because the store is in the city’s commercial retail sales zone and exceeds 3,500 square feet, it requires a use permit.

The council agreed to allow Walgreen’s to take over the entire multiretail building at 301 Second St., eliminating a restaurant and a computer store that city officials required in 1993 as part of the McWhorter’s project to encourage pedestrian traffic and discourage the creation of a big box retail store.

“We’ve tried stores there (along Second Street) and none have been very successful.

“I think we need to accept it was an experiment that didn’t work very well and forget it,” Councilman Lou Becker said.