Dollar General Nixes Plans To Open Cashmere Location

It appears a Dollar General store won't be coming to the town of Cashmere after all.

Less than two weeks after finalizing a deal to purchase 1.87 acres of property within the Cashmere Mill District site from the Chelan-Douglas Regional Port Authority to build the store, purchasers NNN Development of St. George, Utah now say those plans have fallen through.

"They (NNN) reached out and notified us that Dollar General is actually not interested in having a store at the site," explains the Port's Director of Economic Development & Capital Projects, Stacie de Mestre. "Mostly because they say it's too far from town and there's not enough traffic in that area."

Despite the denial of interest from the Goodlettsville, Tennessee-based retail chain, NNN's purchase and sale agreement remains in place and they have not given the Port any official notice to terminate their deal to acquire two parcels (specifically, Parcels C and E) within the Mill District for $310,000.

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The Port's announcement of NNN's plans to bring a Dollar General store to Cashmere sparked an immediate backlash from some of the town's residents, nearly 200 of whom subsequently signed a petition to boycott the chain, which has over 20,000 locations in 48 U.S. states and territories, including eight in Central Washington.

Dissenters of the designs to bring a Dollar General to Cashmere, as well as the Port's agreement to sell the Mill Site parcels to NNN for this purpose, also brought out large numbers of the town's residents to several of the Port's public meetings last month.

"We did announce the news up front about the Dollar General and we still took testimony and public comment from the people who were there," says de Mestre. "We took that feedback very seriously and at the same time, understand that any retail development can generate differing viewpoints. We also heard from plenty of people who were excited about it."

De Mestre says although the Port always takes a vested interest in what the communities linked to their real estate transactions are saying, it's not entirely up to them to determine what eventually happens when such transactions take place.

"The big thing to realize is that it's not the Port's role to select or exclude any individual businesses, just to ensure that the proposed use of any property we sell is consistent with the adopted land use regulations and state laws. We try to balance everything when making these decisions, but the guiding item in these equations is the land use and making sure that our proposed use is in alignment with the purchaser's plans."

Now that plans for the Dollar General store in Cashmere have been scrapped, de Mestre says it's likely that another retail suitor will be pitched for tenancy in the same location by NNN.

"They did ask if we'd be open to another retail use there, and we said, 'bring us your idea and we'll consider it'. The current agreement was very specific for a Dollar General store to move in there, so we'd need to amend the agreement if they come back to us with a new idea that we find acceptable."

As for marketing the two parcels to other potential buyers should NNN decide to terminate its contract to purchase them, de Mestre says the Port is ready for that possibility as well.

"If they terminate the agreement, we will definitely continue marketing the property and working with interested buyers to identify a project that's compliant with zoning, and is also in alignment with our goals, as well as the City of Cashmere's goals."

Under the terms of sale, NNN had 120 days to conduct an initial feasibility study for the Dollar General store.

The agreement also calls for the Port to retain a right of first refusal for 15 years, effective only if the sale results in a future change in use of the property.

Per the terms of sale, the Port also retains the option to repurchase the property if construction of the Dollar General or another retail-use development doesn't break ground within 450 days of closing.

The two parcels were formally declared as surplus by the Chelan County Board of Commissioners on Jan. 26, 2021, when they were allowed to be repurposed for the support of private development.