AUGUSTA — A Maine-based pharmacy and home health care services firm proposes to build a new retail pharmacy on MaineGeneral Medical Center’s Augusta property between the hospital and the Harold Alfond Center for Cancer Care.

Kennebec Pharmacy and Home Care, which already has a retail store and compounding laboratory at 43 Leighton Road in Augusta, plans to build a new retail pharmacy with a drive-thru to serve patients coming to and from the regional hospital and others in north Augusta.

A local pharmacy is proposing to open a new location on the grounds of MaineGeneral Medical Center in north Augusta. Staff file photo by Joe Phelan

The pharmacy would be built on MaineGeneral’s property off Old Belgrade Road, next to the parking lot for the cancer center and on a driveway that provides direct access among the cancer center, pharmacy site and the nearby hospital.

“We’re doing a retail location that’ll have a drive-thru,” said Mike Nowak, president of Kennebec Pharmacy and Home Care. “We’re providing a service and making it convenient for patients at the hospital, who are seeing doctors at the medical office building there and at the cancer center, as well as employees.”

The 5,582-square-foot, two-story building would have a pharmacy on the first floor and offices on the second floor, according to application materials filed with the city.

The project goes before the Augusta Planning Board Tuesday, where the project will be reviewed as a minor development in the medical zoning district, requiring a conditional use permit under the city’s zoning rules.

The business would lease the land in what officials said would be a long-term agreement with MaineGeneral.

Paul Stein, chief operating officer for MaineGeneral Medical Center, said in a letter to the city that the hospital has granted its permission to Nowak to build a retail pharmacy on the hospital site at 35 Medical Center Parkway.

“We believe that having a retail pharmacy on site will benefit the community and ensure patients have access to medications when discharged from our facility,” Stein said in the letter.

MaineGeneral officials could not be reached for further comment Monday.

Nowak said, if the project is approved by the planning board Tuesday, workers would likely break ground this month and the pharmacy could be ready to open in six to eight months.

Kennebec Pharmacy and Home Care’s Leighton Road facility, where the company sells home medical equipment and has a laboratory where it makes drug compounds by combining two or more medications, would continue operating after the new retail pharmacy opens.

Nowak said the new facility will offer free delivery and will also accommodate plans for new programs meant to increase patient compliance with their medications or to ensure they are taking their mediations as prescribed.

“In pharmaceutical care today, a big problem is people who are non-compliant with their medications, which leads to readmissions” to the hospital, he said. “We’ll have some new technology (at the new pharmacy) to enhance compliance and the overall health of the community. We’ll be the first doing it in the state.”

Nowak said he believes there is enough demand for a pharmacy near the hospital.

He noted the business previously had a pharmacy near the Augusta hospital’s former site on East Chestnut Street.

The new pharmacy would likely employ between 10 and 15 people, Nowak said.

The business also has pharmacies in Rockport and Brunswick and has about 120 employees company-wide.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @kedwardskj

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