GENEVA – Geneva is set to have a new, independent pharmacy again Oct. 18, after the new Geneva Pharmacy, 501 E. State St., Geneva, passes a final inspection.

Owner Melissa Lee said she worked at Riley Drug for 13 years – an independent pharmacy on State Street for 55 years until last year – and wanted to continue the tradition with her own independent pharmacy.

“I wanted to continue on, serving the same community I knew and developed relationships with,” Lee said. “It’s where people knew me and I knew them. There’s a love for independent pharmacy out here and people are planning to come back.”

The building had been the former From Shaggy to Chic, a dog grooming business.

Lee razed two additions on the side and back to make room for a drive-thru, and gutted the remaining building to set up a small pharmacy at just under 1,000 square feet.

The drive-thru is expected to open by February, once the city approves it, Lee said.

But Geneva Pharmacy will also offer curbside pickup and free home delivery service.

In addition to Geneva residents, Riley had customers from St. Charles, Batavia, West Chicago and Elburn. Lee said the plan is to continue with those customers. People are already calling 331-265-6136, to get registered in the system for when the pharmacy is officially open.

“A lot of people have a hard time getting out and about – and the pandemic,” Lee said, as the reason for such an expansive home delivery service.

“It’s a way to get their prescriptions and more personal service,” Lee said. “It’s much more personal – you have the same pharmacists, the same technician, the same delivery person. You get to know them as people. You have more time to talk about medications. ... We will have that little extra personal touch to things.”

The pharmacy will have some over-the-counter items like Tylenol, bandages, vitamins and CBD products she said.

It will also offer some vaccines, such as for shingles and pneumonia, but it takes months of lead time to get the flu vaccine, it will not be offered this year, Lee said.

It also takes a while to get into the state system to offer Covid vaccines, but the pharmacy will eventually offer that, too, she said.

The pharmacy will also have a robot to package medications so customers can get their pills parsed out and organized as to what time to take them, she said.

Some are for nursing homes, some are for customers who have trouble remembering if they took their medications, and for people who travel a lot and don’t want to take all their pill bottles with them, Lee said.

“The pharmacist checks and the robot packages it,” Lee said.

Geneva Pharmacy was one of two tax increment finance redevelopment projects Geneva aldermen approved in June.

A tax increment finance district is a development tool where tax dollars are diverted for public improvements such as roads and sewers, as well as other purposes as the law allows.

Geneva Pharmacy was to receive $93,520 for reimbursement of a portion of the improvements, according to the TIF agreement. These included demolition, site and utility upgrades, foundation repairs, sidewalk extension, facade and landscape to meet the city’s design standards, officials said.

Geneva Pharmacy committed $517,000 for the building’s improvements, according to the TIF agreement.

Economic Development Director Cathleen Tymoszenko had said that public-private partnerships like these are necessary to make older properties functional for future use – as the structure was originally a residence built in 1857.

“We need to look at the property – and the property we have in Geneva is limited,” Tymoszenko had said at a special City Council meeting when two TIF projects were approved.

“And property we have on the east side, and within our TIF districts, is a built environment we need to work with in order to make these properties functional for the future and make sure that they are redeveloped for the type of businesses that are envisioned in the plans,” Tymoszenko had said.

The funds came from the East State Street TIF, adopted in 2000, which was created to promote private investment in rehabilitation, officials said. That TIF is set to expire in 2023.