Construction of Dollar General in Chester expected to begin soon

By Cynthia Prairie
© 2015 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Construction on the 9,100-square-foot Dollar General for Main Street in Chester is expected to begin this fall with the store opening in early 2016.

Building permits are posted on Zachary property on Main Street. Its purchase is soon to be completed by the Zaremba Group for a Dollar General store. Photo by Shawn Cunningham.

Building permits are posted on Zachary property on Main Street. Its purchase is soon to be completed by the Zaremba Group for a Dollar General store. Photo by Shawn Cunningham.

And a sure sign of the impending work are the building permits nailed to wooden frames on the property.

A spokesman for the Tennessee company said it would have liked to have it open for Christmas, “but with the weather …”

Dollar General spokesman Dan MacDonald said closing on the property – between the developer Zaremba Group and owner Ted Zachary is currently in process. “It’s pretty standard stuff,” Macdonald said. “But of course, there are a lot of details.”

Artists rendering of the soon-to-be-built Dollar General store.

Artist’s rendering of the soon-to-be-built Dollar General store.

He added that, “We have not made any additional modifications to the building or property beyond what was requested by the” Chester Development Review Board, which put more than 30 conditions on the project when it was approved by a 3 to 2 vote in April of 2012. Those conditions including both operational and physical.

Among those conditions:

  • That Dollar General turn its outside lights and signs on no more than 30 minutes before opening and turn them off no later than 30 minutes after closing. (Zaremba had suggested one hour on either end.)
  • A prohibition on outdoor displays of products and merchandise;
  • Indoor storage of all shopping carts at all times;
  • Perpetual care of landscaping;
  • Reimbursement to the town for the expense of traffic management should problems arise;
  • Restrictions on the time and manner of delivery trucks unloading and conditions covering the maintenance of the building in the event of its closure.
  • That the silver maple in front of the proposed store must be trimmed and maintained rather than cut down as Zaremba had proposed. If the tree dies, the applicant must replace it with a “6 inch caliper minimum of an appropriate variety.”

Among conditions that Zaremba had said it would agree to during the DRB hearing are:

  • Horizontal natural wood clapboard siding as opposed to vinyl;
  • New sidewalks and curbs along Main Street; and
  • A fire suppression sprinkler system.

Once construction is complete, Dollar General will buy the building from Zaremba, MacDonald said.

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About the Author: Cynthia Prairie has been a newspaper editor more than 40 years. Cynthia has worked at such publications as the Raleigh Times, the Baltimore News American, the Buffalo Courier Express, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Patuxent Publishing chain of community newspapers in Maryland, and has won numerous state awards for her reporting. As an editor, she has overseen her staffs to win many awards for indepth coverage. She and her family moved to Chester, Vermont in 2004.

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  1. Justin Turco says:

    I think it’s a shame to have a Dollar General in Chester. Chester is a town that is losing the soul that has made it so special for so long. Dollar General may survive there, but I’ll tell you…Dollar General has nothing to offer that is going to make Chester a better place. Now people will have many reasons why they don’t need to go to Lisai’s or over to the grain store or to the other little places that give Chester its character. Were you destined to start a Mom and Pop store at the Ray Gould’s or North Street Market sites? Not anymore you aren’t. Dollar General will cover it all. Maybe they should just put a Walmart in. Then everybody could go out of business.