Why drug stores don't have housing above/aren't mixed use buildings

 GGW has a piece, "CVS stores that should have apartments above them, ranked."

This store is in Baltimore but the same point pertains.  The second story is fake.  That's a common tactic for chain stores who get complaints that the building isn't tall enough, that it could be mixed use.

I wrote about this 10 years ago ("Beyond matter of right: incentivizing preferred types of development").

It's because of Real Estate Investment Trusts ("Problematic outcomes as real estate investment trusts buy more "high street" retail real estate," 2015).  Some specialize in drug store properties.  They don't want them encumbered by anything else.  Just the drug store.  So properties that would be good for mixed use aren't used that way, because it's not part of the business model.

Drug stores that are in mixed use buildings are in those in those buildings because of different kinds of business relationships.

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I remember talking about this with a planner from Takoma Park.  At the New Hampshire Avenue/University Boulevard intersection is a big Walgreen's.  It actually is part of a large parcel, and Takoma Park wanted to buy it or have an interested developer get it.  Walgreen's didn't even know it was a multi-building parcel and they had no interest in selling it to a third party, only a REIT.