Parish council says no to Dollar General location

Location of a Dollar General Store in Centerville was denied by the St. Mary Parish Council Wednesday.
Capital Growth Buchalter representative Kirk Farrley said the company hoped to build the store across from Centerville High School on the tract of land which Matt Lane runs toward Bayou Teche.
The zoning board previously denied rezoning the property from residential to commercial. It was presented to the parish council for final action.
The building would be 9,100 square feet, with 30 off-street parking spaces and a truck turnaround at the rear.
Farrley said flood zoning issues necessitated keeping the building as close to the road as possible.
An existing building on the lot line, a former grocery store, would have been removed.
La. DOTD had no objections to the location and no traffic study was necessary, Farrley said, nor are there any construction plans on the roadway.
Farrley said traffic in the area would only slightly increase, with peak hours of the store being 5-7 p.m. and about 290 customers per day.
Councilman Craig Mathews said there are concerns regarding the school. He also said he’s noted that such stores are usually located within residential areas for easier access.
“Our goal is to develop and design properties as close to the strategic point as we can,” Farrley said, noting that the location was chosen on those factors.
Projected sales for the Centerville location would have been $1.5 to $1.6 million annually, he said.
The cost of the building will cost about $550,000 to construct.
The parish would have earned revenues on sales and property taxes during construction and in operation as well.
The parish council was also in receipt of correspondence from the St. Mary Parish Superintendent of Schools expressing concerns with the location of the store in relation to Centerville High.
Students regularly cross the road to visit the St. Mary Parish Library branch with a teacher escort, Councilman Paul Naquin said. He also noted that sheriff’s deputies are usually at the school to monitor traffic when students arrive and leave.
Mathews said if the company has in fact looked at other locations and is set on the proposed site, and if denied, he could show the company potential sites in his parish council district.
“I think all of us want you here, but we may have different opinions on how to get you here,” he said.
Councilman J Ina said, as a school principal, the safety of students is paramount. “I don’t want this to turn into Dollar General being the cause of any safety issues,” he said. “We’ve discussed quite a few concerns…there’s some things we need to address.”
Councilman Dale Rogers said he feared setting a precedent for rezoning a residential property to commercial and such actions would continue. “The people I talked to really don’t want that,” he said.
Mathews said the council has rezoned and “certain laws were not followed, or were even created, in order to make a decision go a certain way.”
He said he was worried about the precedent that “sends the wrong signal to prospects that are looking to develop business in our community. It just seems to me that almost every time there is potential to development…we almost go to the hilt to find reasons to discourage, deter or prohibit it. That sends a greater message, a major message...to business” that discourages investment in the area.
One Centerville resident spoke against the store’s location. Another, the property owner of the site, spoke in favor.