A USA Drug Express store on Arkansas 5 North that is being closed by Walgreen Co. is in Bryant. Because of incorrect information from Walgreen’s, this article incorrectly stated that the store is in Benton.
LITTLE ROCK — Walgreen to close
3 more USA Drugs
Walgreen Co. will close three USA Drug stores in addition to the 27 it has already closed in Arkansas after it announced in September the $438 million acquisition of Pine Bluffbased LaFrance Holdings.
The three stores are at 3525 Arkansas 5 North in Benton, 2512-2518 W. 28th St. in Pine Bluff and 2711 Hazel St. in Pine Bluff, said Jim Graham, a Walgreens spokesman. The Pine Bluff stores are scheduled to close at the end of February.
The three stores are near existing or planned Walgreens stores, Graham said. In Pine Bluff, Walgreen plans to open in February a store at 2503 W. 28th St. near the two USA Drug stores , Graham said.
The Benton store is about one mile from a Walgreens in Bryant, he said.
Most or all of the USA Drug employees in Pine Bluff and many in Benton will have job opportunities to work at Walgreens, Graham said.
Seventy-six of 144 USA Drug stores and other brands in Arkansas and six other states - Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee - were to be closed by November 2012.
- David Smith
Transmission-line project meetings set The U.S. Department of Energy will hold 12 public meetings in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee to hear public comment on a proposed high-voltage transmission line project by Plains & Eastern Clean Line.
The Arkansas meetings will be from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. They will be Tuesday at the Arkansas State University-Marked Tree student center; on Feb. 11 at the Van Buren public library on Main Street; on Feb. 12 at the Lake Point Conference Center in Russellville; on Feb. 19 at the Arkansas State University-Newport Student Community Center and on Feb.
21 at the Carmichael Community Center auditorium in Searcy.
The transmission lines for the proposed $2 billion project have a possible route running near each of those five Arkansas cities.
- David Smith
Arkansas Index up
1.79; stocks mixed
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, gained 1.79 to 252.52 Tuesday.
“Stocks were mixed with investors sidelined by concerns over the debt ceiling debate in Washington and uncertainty over yet-to-be-released fourthquarter earnings results,” said Bob Williams, senior vice president and managing director of Delta Trust Investments Inc. in Little Rock. “Arkansas equities outpaced the trend, with advancing stocks leading declining issues by just over two to one.”
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business, Pages 23 on 01/16/2013