Cleveland Township Board stops proposed Maple City Dollar General with zoning, building moratorium
Leelanau remains only county in Michigan without discount chain store
UPDATE, 02/04/25: At a special meeting tonight, the Cleveland Township Board unanimously passed a moratorium on any applications for zoning or building in the Business 1 and Business 2 zoning districts until Aug. 4, with the option to extend for another six months. The Planning Commission meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 5, has been cancelled.
That moratorium stops, for now, a proposed Dollar General development at the corner of Maple City Road and Cemetery Road in Cleveland Township — 0.6 miles north of downtown Maple City, where the same company, Midwest V, sought to build a dollar store in 2019. The land in question is owned by the Marilyn Flaska Trust, as was the land in Maple City where Habitat for Humanity affordable homes were built instead.
At the Board meeting tonight, Township supervisor Tim Stein said that feedback he had received indicated that local citizens spoke with a common voice in opposing a dollar store in their township. Leelanau remains the only county in Michigan without a discount chain store.
Stay tuned for more as this story develops.
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By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
Twice in 2019 Dollar General tried to build stores in Leelanau County. Twice the discount chain goliath was defeated by local zoning and citizen opposition.
Midwest V, LLC, a west Michigan-based developer working on behalf of Dollar General, withdrew an offer in May of that year in downtown Maple City—in a location that later housed Habitat for Humanity’s six affordable units. In July 2019, a moratorium on zoning requests by the Empire Village Council showed Dollar General to the exits. Both towns recently lost their local grocery stores: Deering’s Market in Empire closed in 2018; Gabe’s in Maple City closed in 2019.
Despite the void left by those stores, residents opposed dollar stores, which critics say undercut locally owned businesses and adversely affect the local character of communities.
A 2023 report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance titled “The Dollar Store Invasion” states that “communities are in revolt, but the chains’ predatory tactics also call for federal action.”
“In 2021, nearly half of new stores that opened in the U.S. were chain dollar stores, a degree of momentum with no parallel in the history of the retail industry,” states the report. “At the start of 2022, Dollar General and Dollar Tree, which owns Family Dollar, together operated more than 34,000 stores in the U.S., more than McDonalds, Starbucks, Target, and Walmart combined.”
Midwest V, the same company that targeted Maple City and Empire six years ago, now wants to build a dollar store at the corner of Maple City Road and Cemetery Road in Cleveland Township — 0.6 miles north of downtown Maple City. (The failed 2019 bid was in Kasson Township.)
The Cleveland Township Planning Commission will hold a public hearing about the proposed development on Wednesday, Feb. 5, at 7 pm at the Township Hall. (Click here to view Midwest V’s application for site plan review as well as its site development plan.)
According to Planning Commission chair Dean Manikas, the land in question is owned by the Marilyn Flaska Trust and is zoned Business 2 on a parcel identified in the township’s master plan for business development. Flaska also owned the parcel in downtown Maple City that nearly became a dollar store in 2019.
Northern Michigan dollar stores offer cautionary tales
Glen Arbor Sun reporting in 2019 on dollar stores in the region found that those discount chain stores squeezed locally-owned rural grocery stores, and in some cases led to their demise.
Locally-owned Honor Family Market, on US-31, near the southern reaches of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, was the subject of a story earlier this month in The New York Times. The Schneider family’s business represents a success story. However, dollar stores have impacted their bottom line.
The Schneider family opened Copemish Family Market on M-115 in 1980 and Honor Family Market on US-31 in 1992. Both grocery stores have become fixtures in their communities. But when a Family Dollar opened next to their store in Honor, and a Dollar General opened half a mile from their Copemish location, the volume of sales in each store took a hit.
“When they came in, it took us down to the break-even point,” said Pat Schneider. “It hurt us considerably.”
“We’re all about doing things local. A lot of people who support us are community-minded,” said Pat. “Still, where we used to do a certain amount of business on a busy day, we don’t do that anymore.”
When Kaleva Meats owner Dave Barrett learned that a Dollar General was moving in three blocks away in early 2019, he closed shop the following December—before the bloodletting would begin. “I had Kaleva Meats for 11 years, but I got tired of putting money into it. The dollar store would have taken 25 percent of my business. I’m done fighting.”
“If people start seeing what impact (dollar stores) have, the tax breaks they get,” Barrett said, “I recommend that a town get an ordinance in place to stop them. People that have ordinances against corporations like that seem to thrive.”
Maple City residents agreed with that sentiment and successfully fought off a dollar store in 2019.
“It doesn’t fit the landscape of our small, close-knit community,” said Mary MacDonald, who owns Pegtown Station, a popular restaurant a block away from the site targeted by Midwest V. “We need to band together and keep our eye on this so we don’t let things slide through.”
Dollar Store bid in Lake Ann
Dollar stores—which include Dollar Tree, Family Dollar and Dollar General—are expanding in rural, and often economically depressed, towns throughout the United States. “Small box” dollar stores, typically 9,100 square feet in size, specialize in selling cheap commodities and pre-packaged food that undercut locally-owned grocery stores. Dollar stores work with developers and realtors who refuse to disclose their identity when courting land owners.
A dollar store suitor also tried to acquire land to open a location in Lake Ann in 2019.
That prompted Almira Township to institute a 60-day moratorium at a special meeting in April of that year on any commercial development to give the Planning Commission the opportunity to review its zoning ordinance and potentially limit the size of commercial development in the municipality, which includes Lake Ann.
“We don’t want to discourage growth in the township, but we want it to be growth the township wants, as represented by our constituents,” said board member Matt Therrien, who also owns Lake Ann Brewing Company. Therrien emphasized that local zoning is what decides what development is and is not allowed, not community activism.
Therrien was contacted in spring 2019 by a downstate realtor with a Lansing-area phone number who has a PO Box in Frankfort and is a member of the Benzie County Chamber of Commerce. She inquired about a commercially-zoned piece of land he owns about half a mile from downtown. Therrien received a high offer for the land but was wary of selling to an anonymous corporation that refused to disclose its identity.
Therrien returned the realtor’s call and said “if this is a Dollar General or Family Dollar, we’re not interested in selling.” Therrien recalled that a 10-second pause ensued and she said “I’ll let the buyers know.” Two hours later he received a text stating that “the buyers find these terms unusual and wish to withdraw their offer.”
The same realtor later inadvertently called Therrien’s cell phone number while pursuing other Lake Ann residents about their commercial properties.
“Without knowing who I’m selling to, I’d have to deem it a good fit for my town before I’d get on board,” Therrien told the Sun. “It would otherwise reflect poorly on me, and my beer might not taste as good as before, if you know what I’m saying.”
John Nuske, who owns Lake Ann Grocery, was also alarmed to hear of a dollar store’s interest.
“Yes, Dollar General would provide competition for my business,” he said. “But all they do is add some convenience stuff at convenient hours. They might be able to beat me at the price of milk and eggs, but all they’ll have is cheap (stuff) made in China.”
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