NEWBERRY — LoRex Drugs has made a new home, a little more than a block away, which was previously South State Bank, and before that was Bank of America.
“We were at our previous location for about 10 years,” said Senator Ronnie Cromer, owner of LoRex. “South State Bank, which bought Park Sterling, had already bought Bank of America that was out here, and located here. Then when they bought Park Sterling, that was actually a bank of which I was on the building committee to build that bank.”
When Cromer purchased the building, he told the South State representatives it was ironic because he helped them build their new location in the old Park Sterling, and then he ended up buying their old location.
“I purchased this building in April, took a while to get everything done, plans drawn up. It actually didn’t take but three months for the remodeling, and all the tearing out and remodeling,” Cromer said. “A lot of it has to do with getting things up to compliance when you remodel, you have to get everything up to ADA standards, that was probably the hardest part.”
Being a pharmacy, LoRex had to make sure they had certain features to be in compliance. Cromer said number one they had to have a sink, whether they used it or not.
“Then you’ve got to have all the necessary compounding equipment, if you compound. Compound just means you take the chemicals and make a drug out of it for a person, or an ointment, liquid, capsule. Primarily you have to have the special equipment required for that,” he said.
Cromer added that chain pharmacies do very little compounding, if any.
After all the fixtures were put into the new LoRex, the building took on a whole new life, according to Cromer.
“Very pleased with the look we were able to achieve,” he said.
Cromer’s favorite part of the new location is the amount of space they have outside for parking. Customers familiar with the bank will notice they also took out one of the drive-thru islands, which Cromer said will make it easier for customers to be able to drive right up to.
“We pretty much have all the features as before, with better parking,” Cromer said.
Cromer has continuously operated a pharmacy, with a pharmacy license, for 37 years. He purchased the pharmacy from James Ward when it was called Sentry Drugs, which at that time was in the Newberry Shopping Center, that took place on August 15, 1981.
“We actually sold out to CVS in 1997, had a three year non-compete, opened back up in 2000, I didn’t think I would, but we did, but we were continuing to operate. CVS allowed me to fill x number of prescriptions because we did compounding, and also there were some prescriptions CVS did not want to fill themselves, they would send me those prescriptions,” Cromer said.
LoRex Drugs can be found at 1310 Wilson Road, Newberry, and is now open for business at their new location.
