Local pharmacy will fill empty bank building on Vista

The vacant bank building at Vista and Cassia streets will become home to a new independent pharmacy set to open in early August.

Vacant banks are a tough sell, said Debbie Martin, principal at DK Commercial, but she found a buyer in Paul J. Wilson in February, and Wilson in May signed Med Sync Pharmacy as a tenant.

“Rarely do you get an investor to buy an empty building,” Martin said. “It was just tough. Those former bank buildings are challenging.”

Martin said they are about twice the size that a typical food establishment wants, and the bank configuration doesn’t fit the footprint sought by many commerce establishments. But the Med Sync ownership team relishes the pharmacy’s 3,040-square-foot former bank quarters for its start-up pharmacy.

“For a person who wants to open a pharmacy, it’s so perfect,” said Josh Gehrke, co-owner and pharmacist in charge.

Co-owner Leo Yasinski said the team looked at several vacant bank properties. The owners also include Harry Herar, who like Yasinksi is a strategic accounts manager at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, and the Fuchs family, which own the many Dick’s Pharmacies in the Magic Valley.

“Bank buildings are awesome,” Yasinski said. “They are wired for cameras. The vault is great for narcotic drugs. The biggest thing is the drive-thru. The huge parking lot is extremely important.”

Wilson had some Section 1031 US Internal Revenue Code funds from a property sale that needed reinvesting. He lives just a few blocks from the former Bank of the Cascades that was vacated in October 2013.

“I wasn’t necessarily looking for a bank,” Wilson said. “It looked like good building.”

He did not have a tenant lined up. Wilson did not disclose the purchase price but the property is assessed at $506,400.

“I just put an ad on craigslist and put a sign out there,” Wilson said. “This pharmacy came along from Twin Falls.”

Med Sync will be an old-school pharmacy, focused on prescriptions and over-the-counter medications, not the modern one-stop shop for nearly everything that chain pharmacies have become, Yasinski said.

Med Sync will dispense prescribed drugs in pill packs that are filled and labeled for specific days and meals, simplifying the correct use of medications for people with multiple prescriptions, Yasinski said.

“Chain pharmacies have just gotten so large they are not able to provide the local service that an independent can,” said Gehrke, who has been a pharmacist at Walgreens and is now finishing up at Fred Meyer. “We want to bring the independent pharmacy back. There has been a contraction of independent pharmacies in the past 10-15 years.”