A national pharmacy chain plans to open its first two Howard County stores in Oakland Mills and Clarksville in the next 18 months.

Oakland Mills officials are keeping an eye on the Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreens' plan to open a 14,820-square-foot store at the corner of Route 175 and Thunder Hill Road to determine whether the store will affect traffic and existing shopping patterns in the village.

Meanwhile, Walgreens plans to open a nearly-completed 16,800-square-foot store on Route 108, near the Route 32 interchange, in Clarksville.

Construction on the Clarksville store is delayed for an undisclosed reason, said Tiffany Bruce, a Walgreens spokeswoman. The store could open in the late summer or October at the latest, she said.

In addition to a pharmacy that will offer drive-through service, the stores will feature one-hour photo shops, frozen food sections, electronics and household items, Bruce said.

Village center competition

The Oakland Mills store would replace a BB&T bank that closed more than two years ago. In March, Columbia-based developer Manekin submitted a site development plan for the store to county officials.

In the meantime, Walgreens is paying a ground lease to Timonium-based Bavar Properties Group, the site's owner, said Robert Bavar, vice president of Bavar Properties Group.

The developers expect the county to take six to nine months to approve the project, Bavar said. If the project is approved, the store could be built by late 2009, Bruce said.

Bavar, who bought the property in 2006, had originally sought to build a small, 7,800-square-foot shopping center on the parcel. However, Oakland Mills officials questioned the project, saying they feared it would shift business away from the nearby Oakland Mills Village Center.

Oakland Mills residents and officials are working with developers to revitalize their 40-year-old village center, which has suffered closed stores, vacant properties and a decrease in customer traffic in recent years.

Bavar abandoned the shopping center project and decided to instead work on the Walgreens project, he said.

Oakland Mills officials also are watching the status of the plans for the Walgreens, said Sandy Cederbaum, Oakland Mills village manager.

The village lacks a full pharmacy with a drive-through window, said Cederbaum, who added that she is optimistic that the store would bring more potential shoppers to Oakland Mills.

"It's a corner that's been vacant and vacant isn't good," she said, adding that village officials might want Walgreens to post signs around the new store to notify shoppers at the pharmacy about existence of the village center, she said.

The Oakland Mills Village Board has invited representatives from Manekin to the board's June 10 meeting to present their plans for the development to the community.

"We don't really know anything about the plan," board chairwoman Karen Gray said.

Walgreens is one of the largest drugstore chains in the United States, with stores in 49 states. The chain is moving into Howard County after determining that a market exists for its stores in the county, Bruce said.

Walgreens also operates stores in Catonsville, Baltimore, Randallstown and Glen Burnie, according to the company's Web site.

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