It was time for a face-lift, and while they were at it they thought they would help the neighborhood, too.
Ganse Apothecary, 355 W. King St., has done close to $200,000 in renovations to its store, adjoining business and the apartments above the stores, in a building that dates back to the early 1920s when it was Plow Tavern.
The building housed a Hudson car dealership in the 1930s and was a sporting good store from the 1950s through early 1960s. Since the 1939 it has been a pharmacy. Stan Buch's family owned the original pharmacy.
"We've done a total overhaul of the store," said Jeremy Ganse, operations manager for Ganse Apothecary and Red Rose Awards, the family's second business in the building. "It is more out of need than anything. We need more counter space. We came to a point where we had to wait for space to complete work."
He kept the look of a 1950s pharmacy while attempting to be more functional. There is also a mini museum of items in use or that were used by the pharmacy.
The renovations will help the business and are also designed to revitalize the corner of King and Charlotte streets. They have poured new sidewalks and added planters to the front of the building. Cameras monitored by the city will also be installed outside the building, Ganse said, to prevent crime.
The business is about two blocks away from the downtown business district, Ganse said, but the intersection is key. He said he wants to start with improvements on their corner and move toward the 200 block.
"We've seen what Lancaster is doing, and we are on board with it," he said. "It takes one business to start the change in a particular block."
Ganse said work on converting four apartments that are called Plow Tavern Apartments on the top of the building into two is underway. The first apartment should be finished in July. Each will be 2,700-square feet, three bedrooms and have central air conditioning. There will be gated parking for the occupants. A fence was constructed around the 30 parking spaces behind the building.
"We're looking for higher-end tenants," Ganse said. "Gated parking is not something you see in this area, so we'll see. We may fall on our face, but you never know. It has worked so far."
Ganse's father, Jerry, owns the store and the adjoining business, Red Rose Awards, 7 N. Charlotte Street, and still works as a pharmacist. He bought the business the apothecary in 1980 and the building about 15 years ago.
The apothecary has 15 employees, and Red Rose Awards has five.
Red Rose Awards, which does customized screenings, trophies and embroidery, is independent of the pharmacy. Ganse said it is also looking to expand. It prints 900 pieces in three hours and 65 dozen in an hour.
One of the reasons for the overhaul in the pharmacy is because of the drug Clozaril, which is sold to about 350 people in the Philadelphia area, Ganse said. The drug allows people with schizophrenia to function more independently.
With the Clozaril prescriptions, Ganse's store has the ability to offer services that require extra paper work and recording of information many pharmacies do not want to be bothered doing. They started filling Clozaril presciptions in Lancaster and expanded the service to the Philadelphia area.
The store is dedicated to filling prescription drugs with very little over-the-counter sales. He said 15-20 percent of the store's business is walk-in; 15-20 percent is delivery and the rest is mail order, group homes and servicing the Philadelphia area with Clozaril.
"There's no end in site," Ganse said. "We hit capacity three years ago and worked two years at capacity. We are a little under-staffed. We're looking to take on more business."
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