Walgreens, a nationwide drugstore chain, submitted preliminary sketch plans to Windham planners late last month for a proposed store in North Windham.

If approved by town planners, the new store would be the first Walgreens in Maine, and would be located at the corner of routes 302 and 115. The drugstore will take the place of Champions Glass, the former Squirrel Crossing antiques shop, the former Martin’s Point Health Care building and two private residences on Route 115.

“The company has been looking for a high traffic, high visibility area and has found it in this spot,” said Peter Hedrich, design engineer with Gray-based Gorrill Palmer Consulting Engineers, Inc. who is designing the building and grounds for the project.

The Walgreens project, kept quiet for months by town planners, is the first to go through the town’s new Design Guidelines planning recommendations. The set of Design Guidelines, debated for years by town officials and citizens, deals with construction aesthetics. To make sure the new store complies with the new guidelines, Walgreens is working closely with the Windham Planning Board on landscaping proposals.

Since Boody’s Corner is strategically located, and includes two corners – the Shed Happens corner and Champion Glass corner – that planners anticipate as potentially developable, the town is hoping to make an example of the Walgreens property for future development.

At the cost of $2,000, the town paid for a landscape architect – Mitch Razor of Yarmouth – to draw three concept plans for Boody’s Corner. One plan, designed to appropriately usher tourists into the “Lakes Region,” includes a wave-like pattern of earthen berms and plantings. Another plan, which the Planning Board seemed to prefer at its meeting last week, included rocks and beach grass, similar to landscaping at the Raymond Beach parking area. All three plans are still under consideration by the Planning Board and the developers.

“In Boody’s Corner, we have just about the most centrally located property in town, and we now have the ability, before any other development occurs, to say, yes, these are some of the design elements we, as a town, would like to see incorporated in this pivotal, gateway-type area,” Windham Economic Development Director Keith Luke said.