CVS is opening a new, smaller-format store in southeast Houston that puts the focus on pharmacy services rather than retail aisles-an approach the company says is meant to help address a local "pharmacy desert" near the Greater Hobby area.

The location, 8503A Gulf Freeway, is CVS' first pharmacy-focused site in Texas and comes in at about 3,000 square feet, roughly one-third the size of many traditional CVS stores.

CVS says the goal is to make it easier for more than 9,000 nearby residents to get prescriptions filled, stay current on immunizations, and ask questions of a neighborhood pharmacist-services that can feel out of reach when the nearest pharmacy is too far away or hard to get to.