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Why create competition before your new grocery store has even opened its doors yet? That was a question raised during Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting in Cumberland, as the group considered a conditional use permit application. 

The application is from Valco Investments, which is in the process of selling a piece of land, one located at the intersection of Blenheim Road and Anderson Highway. The company buying the property, Rhetson Companies, wants to put a Dollar General Market up on the site. 

The applicant’s plans call for a 10,640 square foot Dollar General retail store, which would also have a DG Market section, so residents could shop for some groceries inside. Specifically, they need a permit in order to bypass a typical county requirement. Cumberland zoning requires one parking space for every 250 square feet of retail floor space in the building. The building is 10,640 sq. ft. with 8,572 sq. ft. of retail space. This will require 35 parking spaces, according to zoning.

Rhetson officials are asking to be allowed to only have 30 parking spots on site, which will allow them to design the property so that the front of the building faces Route 60. If they have to meet the 35 parking space requirement, then due to how the land is structured, the entrance to the Dollar General would be facing the back of the property. 

The request before supervisors on Tuesday was just to send the application to a public hearing. It had already passed through the planning commission, which recommended approval. And supervisors did end up agreeing to send the application to a public hearing, but with one member voting no and another abstaining. 

One issue with the permit

There’s just one problem. 

District 2 Supervisor John Newman was the member who abstained from voting, although he didn’t give a reason why. Meanwhile, District 1 Supervisor Bryan Hamlet was clear on his reasoning for voting no. 

“All due respect to Dollar General, I can tell you the people of Cumberland County don’t want another Dollar General, so I’m a no,” he said before the vote. 

Afterwards, Hamlet went into more detail into his vote, pointing out that residents for years have wanted a grocery store in the county. Does it make sense to give the new shop corporate competition before it even opens? 

“We actually have a local proprietor, a resident of Cumberland County, that has said you know what, I see the need and I want to serve my community and I’m going to open a grocery store,” Hamlet said. “I think the last thing we need to do, before that one has even gotten off the ground, is to complicate things for that local proprietor.”

He’s referring to the grocery store being built at 1481 Anderson Highway. That’s across Route 60 from the County Administration building. It was the old Marion’s Bi-Rite and has also been the old Cumberland Hardware store. Travis Harris and his partners have renovated the old building and are set to open on Sept. 1.

That was something planning commission members had asked about as well, wondering if the two stores would be far enough away from each other that they wouldn’t become competition. County staff said while the two stores were within a 10-mile radius of each other, they didn’t expect it to be a case of competition. That satisfied planning commission members, who voted to recommend approval. 

What happens now in Cumberland? 

With Tuesday’s vote, the Dollar General Market application moves to a public hearing. That’s currently scheduled for Tuesday, July 8.