Stan Harpe and Ron Swinson, developers, successfully appealed for a permit to build a 13,800- square- foot Walgreen's on the former Kenny's Auto site in Five Points. With a vote of six for and one against, the Columbia Board of Zoning Appeals allowed for a special exception to operate a Five Points Walgreen's in excess of 10,000 square feet. It was Tuesday, May 12.

The Walgreen's design had already gained approval from the Design Development Review Commission.

Under the new Five Points development overlay, a retail store with more area than 10,000 square feet is too big. However, developers Stan Harpe and Ron Swinson successfully appealed for a permit to build a 13,800- square- foot Walgreen's on the former Kenny's Auto site at the corner of Blossom Street and Saluda Avenue.

Albeit 6- 1, the vote did not reflect the noisy opposition present at the public meeting.

After attorney Robert Fuller laid out his logic for the special exception to be allowed, engineer Gene Dinkins chimed in with his endorsement of the over- sized Walgreen's and its 13,800 square feet, which incidentally was actually 700 square feet smaller than the standard new Walgreen's floor area. Dinkins lives nearby behind Finlay House at the corner of Blossom Street and Harden Street.

Caroline Watson who lives a half block from the Walgreen's site protests the violation of the Five Points master plan. Architect Doug Quackenbush, not the Walgreen's designer but the Five Points Association's architect for its master plan, argued in favor of the Walgreen's in that it was time Five Points was allowed "to grow up." It was the intent of the Five Points master plan to encourage development, to attract investment, according to Quackenbush.

Board member Patrick Hubbard (a law professor at USC) asked why the extra floor area was necessary. For economic viability, the development team answered.

Hubbard also asked how the Blossom Street façade worked for the pedestrian. He was worried about the elongated brick wall. The developers said the large windows along Blossom Street helped to break up the length, to which Hubbard then asked what would be seen through the windows. Would the pedestrian see mostly the backs of display cases? The developers couldn't say for sure because the store layout and operations were entirely in the hands of Walgreen's management.

Progress was being made, though, the developers said. Kenny's Auto gave Blossom Street a windowless wall and 22,000 square feet inside, which was a Winn- Dixie before Kenny's.

Hubbard asked about a pedestrian- friendly ATM, and the developers cited the accessible ATM planned for the sidewalk's corner of Salu- da Avenue and Devine Street.

Nearby neighbor Caroline Watson, an attorney on Congaree Avenue maybe a half- block away from the Walgreen's site, protested the violation of the Five Points master plan. She also expressed concern about the drive- through activity, automobiles driving in and out to the bank's window teller service.

Some business people wonder why any plan for the expensive Kenny's site would build on just one level and further wonders why a suburban scheme with three separate buildings, the drugstore, and the bank branch and a store, is anything better than what was originally proposed.

Almost three years earlier, the Walgreen's developers were promoting a far different scheme, one that not only had urban density but also urbane sensibility. The earlier plan had all retail on the ground level, two levels of public parking above, and two- story residences with their own parking level took the higher three stories, all for a six- story height, which was two stories above the new Five Points guidelines.

The neighborhood activists and low- density advocates and mayoral wannabes organized and erupted in unison against the unique addition to the streetscape and its extra two stories. So now they get a sprawling one- story Walgreen's, just like all the others out along the outlying access roads to the city.