Developer will meet with Cobblestone Museum to discuss new Dollar General
Photo by Tom Rivers: Marty Taber, right, talks with volunteers during a rehearsal for a Ghost Walk earlier this month at the Cobblestone Museum. The Ward House, built in the 1840s, was part of the tour.
GAINES – The developer working on a new Dollar General store in Gaines will meet on Nov. 1 with representatives of the Cobblestone Museum.
Zaremba Group has proposed building the store on a wooded lot across from the Cobblestone Schoolhouse on Ridge Road. The schoolhouse is part of the museum’s cobblestone buiidlings from before 1850. They are part of a historic district that was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Cobblestone Museum officials, as well as the State Historic Preservation Office, have asked Zaremba and Dollar General to find an alternative site for the proposed store, outside of the historic district.
The 4 p.m. meeting on Nov. 1 at the Cobblestone Church will be open to the public. Those attending from the developer are Gary Hough, senior director of Development, and Mary Ann Wervey, vice president of Retail Development, for the Zaremba Group.
Doug Farley, the museum director, said he will present nearly 1,200 petitions signatures and hundreds of comments opposed to the project.
Farley and the museum supporters want to know why Zaremba and Dollar General are determined to go with the site across the street from the historic schoolhouse, especially when other alternatives on Ridge Road have been presented, including the corner of routes 279 and 104.
“Why is this site a good pick?” Farley said about the spot across from the schoolhouse. “It will hurt the historic ambiance. Why haven’t they looked at other sites outside of the historic district?”
