If you drive through Sun City’s intersection of 99th Avenue and Union Hills Drive, you have probably noticed the vacant commercial building sitting across from the Marinette Recreation Center. The aging structure at 9885 W Union Hills Dr has been sitting largely unused for years, and many residents have wondered the same thing: what exactly is going on with that building?

The short answer is that the property appears to be a development project that never happened.

Property records show the site was purchased in 2005 by an ownership entity with “CVS” in the name, suggesting that the national pharmacy chain had plans for the corner roughly twenty years ago. At the time, CVS and other pharmacy chains were aggressively expanding across the country, often targeting highly visible intersections in growing suburban areas.

The intersection of 99th Avenue and Union Hills would have been an ideal location for a pharmacy. It sits at a signalized corner with strong visibility, surrounded by thousands of homes and directly across from one of Sun City’s busiest recreation centers. Those are exactly the kinds of sites large pharmacy chains typically look for when building their freestanding stores with drive thru prescription lanes.

But despite the purchase, the existing building from the mid 1980s was never demolished, and the modern CVS prototype store that likely had been envisioned never materialized.

While there is no public record explaining exactly why the project stalled, several possibilities could explain it.

First, the northwest Valley already had strong pharmacy coverage, including grocery store pharmacies and other chains nearby. Second, CVS slowed its rapid expansion in the years following the mid 2000s as retail trends shifted and healthcare services moved more online. It is also possible that redevelopment challenges or changing market conditions made the project less attractive.

The property remains commercially zoned and sits on roughly one acre, but the nearly 9,000 square foot building has become outdated for modern retail uses. In commercial real estate listings, the site is now marketed primarily as a redevelopment opportunity, meaning the existing structure would likely be demolished before a new tenant moves in.

For now, the building remains one of those small mysteries in the community, a reminder of a retail project that was likely planned during the mid 2000s growth boom but never came to fruition. Unfortunately the parking lot has become an informal FSBO car lot.

Do you have info on this property and its history? If you know something that I couldn’t find, please let me know!