900 Olmsted Falls residents protest against proposed Dollar General

OLMSTED FALLS, Ohio (WOIO) - A neighborhood in Olmsted Falls is rallying against a newly proposed business in their area, a Dollar General on Columbia Road.

Nearly 900 residents have signed a petition, asking the store to go somewhere else.

“The quaint beauty that we have in Olmsted Falls is going to be really jeopardized by this facility,” said Barbara Richardson, who owns Emerald & Violet, a store next door to the proposed Dollar General location.

Olmsted Falls will have a meeting to discuss the proposal on October 8. Richardson says many residents will be there, too, voicing their concerns against the project.

"This is a really busy street as it is, and folks live really close to here," said Richardson. "There’s a community called Kendall Falls just down the way, so a lot of children, and people are concerned about how fast everything will go, the traffic is going."

19 News reached out to Dollar General and the company responded after the story aired on television.

At this time, we are currently in due diligence phase for a new Dollar General in Olmsted Falls, Ohio that would be located off Columbia Road. This means we are reviewing the opportunity to add a new store in the area, but we have not committed to doing so just yet. Based on our current timeline, we anticipate to have a final decision on this by spring 2020. Feel free to check back periodically for updates.

Our customers are at the center of all that we do and meeting customers’ needs is Dollar General’s top priority when choosing store locations. The company looks for places where we can offer customers an easy and convenient shopping choice as we generally serve customers within a three to five mile radius, or 10-minute drive. We also take competitive factors, traffic patterns and community concerns into consideration.

The store would employ approximately 6-10 employees, depending on the individual needs of the store. Anyone interested in joining one of America’s fastest-growing retailers with competitive wages and benefits, world-class training and development and the ability to further their career through our growing organization may apply for available positions online at www.dollargeneral.com/careers.

Dollar General sells quality, name-brand and private brand merchandise such as foods, health and beauty products, home cleaning supplies, housewares, stationery, seasonal items and basic clothing. In addition to high quality private brands, Dollar General sells products from America's most-trusted brands such as Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Unilever, Kellogg's, General Mills, Nabisco, Hanes, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola.

Dollar General gives its customers more than everyday low prices on merchandise as part of its mission of Serving Others. Dollar General is deeply involved in the communities it serves and is an ardent supporter of literacy and education through the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, which awards grants each year to nonprofit organizations, schools and libraries within a 20-mile radius of a Dollar General store or distribution center to support adult, family, summer and youth literacy programs. Since its inception in 1993, the DGLF has awarded more than $172 million in grants to nonprofit organizations, helping more than 11 million individuals take their first steps toward literacy or continued education. For more information about the Dollar General Literacy Foundation and its grant programs, visit www.dgliteracy.com.

The Dollar General Literacy Foundation also supports individuals in the communities that Dollar General stores serve who may be interested in learning how to read, speak English or prepare for the high school equivalency test. Referrals to a local organization that provides free literacy services are available online here or a postage-paid reply card that can be mailed in for information is available at the cash register of every Dollar General store.

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