Store by store, Dollar General's presence in St. Clair County is still expanding

Any time there’s new construction, the running joke — in passing and on local social media — is that it’s the build for a new Dollar General.

And at points over the last several years, the jokers weren’t wrong.

There are hundreds of locations of the convenience store chain across Michigan, and 21 in just St. Clair County with more than one new location potentially in the works.

Economists have widely wagered that the corporation’s longterm growth and store expansion targets rural areas — something that draws both criticism and praise from local customers — while it increasingly adds food and produce access at both existing and new stores.

The company reported celebrating surpassing 5,000 stores nationwide to offer fresh produce in late January this year and opening its 20,000th store overall Feb. 24. The Dollar General off Military Street and Electric Avenue on Port Huron’s southside, for example, introduced some produce last year, and in reply to an informal survey from the Times Herald last week, residents commented on more recently seeing produce at other stores in the county.

But feedback on how well-received the stores are in local communities in the two decades they've developed locally is often mixed, even as their reach continues to newly penetrate empty roadside properties with the familiar yellow Dollar General lettering.

“They target small rural towns and lower-income areas and choke out long-time local businesses owners,” said resident Lenny Kiloustian, who opposed a new store last year in Clay Township. Last week, he said he believed they stymied local business owners “based on their monopolies” with other dollar stores.

In Clay, it was rejected in a rezoning request but not the store itself. Kiloustian said he was glad of the outcome, though he added, “It does not mean they will not try to buy other available commercial property. At least, we slowed them down for now.”

Currently, Dollar General is in the due diligence period for four locations, including downriver and central St. Clair County.

"This means we are reviewing the opportunity to add new stores in St. Clair County, but we have not committed to doing so just yet," the company said Friday in a statement. "Based on our current timeline, we anticipate having final decisions on these projects in summer 2024."

So, where are Dollar Generals popping up?

According to the DG store locater, there are currently two locations in the city of Port Huron, in Port Huron Township near the border with the city, in Kimball, and around Yale in Brockway Township, while there is also one location in Algonac, Capac, Columbus, Burtcvhille, East China, Emmett, Fair Haven, Fort Gratiot, Goodells, Marine City, Marysville, St. Clair, and St. Clair Township.

Another is proposed for Port Huron Township at Lapeer and Michigan roads.

Mike Hernandez, of the township’s building department, said it was “actually going to be a full-fledged” Dollar General Market at the intersection — and what he believed would be the company’s first DG Market in the state.

According to Dollar General’s store locator, there didn’t appear to be any DG Market locations nearby in the region. A representative from the Zaremba Group representing Dollar General its site plan applications did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Hernandez said site plans went through the planning commission last month but that it was hung up on “engineering concerns.” Port Huron Township Supervisor Bob Lewandowski said the company needs to address some drainage concerns before they’re “good to go.” He said they hadn’t yet pulled any permitting as of Thursday, while the township awaited revised plans.

The location as is, where Lewandowski said he believed the store entrance would be off Michigan, is heavily wooded and would require significant demolition of vegetation before any work could start.

Although there were already other Dollar Generals nearby, as well as other markets with groceries — and though he didn’t personally frequent them — Lewandowski said he understood the “down the road” convenience the stores offered, adding, “They seem to know what their market is.”

At least one other Dollar General location, meanwhile, isn't moving forward.

One was originally proposed at 1665 Busha Highway in Marysville with a planning commission hearing slated for April last year.

Soon after, however, Marysville City Manager Randy Fernandez said, “They decided to back out."

"They were looking at some property that we didn’t own, that somebody else owned, and bottom line, after probably a year of talking about it, several meetings, we got a call and they backed away," he said.

When asked, Dollar General didn't specify Marysville among its list of considered locations. It did mention Algonac, Port Huron, St. Clair Township and Marine City, though not exact sites.

The proposal in Clay was for a residential property on Pointe Tremble Road west of Endelman Court around Pearl Beach.

The township’s planning commission signed off on rezoning the site as commercial last October, but the township board rejected the change, ultimately pausing the effort, earlier this year. It wasn’t clear if Dollar General had other Clay Township plans.

“It wasn’t reflected in our master plan, that particular piece of property, as becoming commercial,” said Clay Supervisor Artie Bryson.

“I always look at if it went up to (be contested in) court, we basically have to try to follow our master plan. That’s why we have it,” he said. “We weren’t looking at it as a Dollar Generals, a Tim Horton’s, or a brothel, we were looking at it as, ‘OK, do we want to go from residential?’ Next door, there’s a residential house, and across the street, there’s residential.”

Kiloustian said he’d attained a lawyer to help challenge the issue, admitting there was plenty of other community pushback. In December, before the township board’s rejection of the rezoning, he’d said they wanted to “preserve our residential neighborhood” and prevent any “adverse effects on the surrounding community.”

They didn’t need a dollar store, he said, with three others within a three-mile radius.

Now, Kiloustian said he wants to talk with local government officials about putting a temporary moratorium on establishments like Dollar General.

How do residents feel about Dollar Generals?

Just as there are a variety of Dollar General locations, so too are their opinions.

In reply to a Times Herald Facebook callout, resident Ann Bufford said she used to go to a Dollar General in Yale. “Pro: I didn’t have to drive to Port Huron. Con: You can get it cheaper at Walmart,” she said.

Marysville resident Lauren Clark-Radatz said she’s at her nearest store three to four times a month to “go in and grab a few things,” like bread, laundry detergent, or paper towel.

But even with the shift to include more produce and food in Dollar General stores, she said she wasn’t sure it’d ever be a replacement for other places that cater to groceries.

“I don't think there's much I would recommend them to carry unless they did turn into a market. If DG markets carried more groceries like meat and fresh produce, I may get some there when I stopped in for the quick trips,” Clark-Radatz said in a message. “But I don't think I'd go to DG for grocery shopping. Marysville does carry some produce, which I have grabbed because it was convenient when I stopped in, but I didn't go there to specifically grab that.”

Like most respondents, the Marysville patron suggested Dollar Generals were about the convenience — often unfettered by a corporation’s strategy or any potential philosophical or economic impact.

“The one on Electric! I love them! It's a lot easier for me to get to (rather than) driving to Walmart,” commented resident Cathy Rumble. “Cheaper too. I guess if I had a ton of money I would shop elsewhere!”

Still, others said they had concerns about Dollar Stores, ranging from the available merchandise to the impact on local retailers.

Outlets like the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, an advocacy group that trumpets local power over corporate control, looped Dollar General in with a 2023 study about dollar stores, business tactics its experts believed were predatory, and the occasional pushback communities — such as the wished-for policy suggested by Kiloustian.

Port Huron gardener Julian Ruck in an email said he thought the chain was “a bad sign” — one facing communities nationwide — that signaled trouble for poorer residents. Resident Cheri Smith, who serves on the city's Historic District Commission, cited her own research, alleged effects on low-income areas, and anecdotal drops in competing business for local establishments when Dollar Generals open their doors, commenting, "With this information, I do not shop there."

Resident Cristal Moses lives nearby the existing Dollar General on Dove Road in Port Huron Township. She was among the residents who said she wanted to see local stores clean up.

“All I ask is the darn workers collectively put away their merchandise. I can’t fit carts down aisles … stock carts always in the way … just a whole hot mess,” she said in a comment this week. Although she admitted it was convenient, she later added, “The word definitely needs to be spread so that employers working there can fix the issue. No one likes a messy unorganized store.”

Whatever the support or criticism, Dollar General said it's growth has been measured and responsive to the market as demanded by customers since opening its first St. Clair County store in Marysville in 2001.

"We take a number of factors into consideration, carefully evaluating each potential new store location to ensure we can continue to meet our customers’ price, value and selection needs," the company told the Times Herald. "We believe the addition of each new store provides positive economic benefits including additional access to affordable products for customers; the creation of new jobs for local residents and career development opportunities for our employees; the generation of additional tax revenue for the city; and the ability for local nonprofits, schools and libraries to apply for literacy and education grants through the Dollar General Literacy Foundation."

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Store by store, Dollar General is still expanding in St. Clair County