MILLINOCKET — Family Dollar will be expanding its presence with a new store the discount retailer hopes to build in Millinocket this spring, officials said Saturday.
Set to be located on Central Street, also known as Route 11, between Subway and Gateway Insurance Co., the new building will closely resemble the Family Dollar store that opened in East Millinocket in November, said Anthony Filauro, chairman of the Millinocket Planning Board.
“It’s the same dimensions. It will be turned 90 degrees so the more narrow face of the building will face Central Street. That’s just because of the configuration of the lot,” Filauro said Saturday. “I am quite pleased. When they built a Family Dollar in East Millinocket, I was really thinking they would not follow through with this but they are.”
Albert Cowling, a Maine district manager for Family Dollar, said Sunday that he did not know whether the present Millinocket Family Dollar, which is in the Northern Plaza Shopping Center on Route 11, would be consolidated into the new store or remain open.
Cowling referred comment on the new store to the company’s corporate headquarters in Matthews, North Carolina. A corporate spokesman could not be reached for comment.
The East Millinocket Family Dollar cost $700,000 to build. Construction began late last spring. The 8,320-square-foot facility on Main Street, also known as Route 11, will likely employ a half-dozen full- and part-time workers, Cowling said.
A Family Dollar store has been in Lincoln on West Broadway for almost 10 years. According to its website, familydollar.com, the chain includes more than 8,000 stores from Maine to California. The chain celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009.
Town Council Chairman Richard Angotti Jr. said Family Dollar was a forward-looking organization that sees what Millinocket and the Katahdin region have to offer.
“I just think that they are looking forward and that’s what we need to do. They see the opportunities in the small rural towns in Maine and probably in the U.S.,” Angotti said. “That’s why they are doing this. We should grasp that potential and encourage other businesses to invest in the rural communities of Maine.”
Town leaders will probably go through the next budget cycle before turning more attention to economic development, Angotti said. They are trying to reduce town government spending by $1.5 million to $2 million next year to offset last summer’s loss of the Great Northern Paper Co. LLC paper mill, which was once the town’s largest employer and taxpayer.
Town Manager Peggy Daigle warned that the cutting would be very challenging. She announced the financial goal in November. The budget cycle will begin in a few months and typically concludes by June 30, the end of the fiscal year.
The planning board voted 4-0 on Dec. 16 to approve Family Dollar’s site plan. Members Louis Pelletier and Albert Berube were absent, and the board’s seventh seat remains unfilled, Filauro said.
The company needs a building permit to begin construction, Filauro said.
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