Dollar General looks to build new store in Albion across from high school

This site rendering from Fagan Engineers in Elmira shows how trucks would turn and enter the site to make deliveries.

ALBION – Dollar General is looking to build a new 10,640-square-foot store in the village on Route 31 across from the high school.

The store would be next to the Cone Zone ice cream business, next door to the east. The Broadway Group LLC from Huntsville, Ala. would demolish an existing building, which recently sold used cars, and put up the new store.

The Orleans County Planning Board this evening recommended the Village of Albion approve a variance request for the parking spaces for the store.

The village code requires one spot for every 200 square feet for a retail store. The Dollar General would need 53 parking spots under the village code, but The Broadway Group sought a variance to allow for 35 spaces. The site is already tight for space and many of the customers come and go fairly quickly, said Dan Strong, a member of the County Planning Board.

Strong, a former Town of Albion code enforcement officer, is handling the code enforcement duties for the project because the village code officer, Chris Kinter, is the owner of the site for the proposed store at 327 East Ave.

Dollar General said the store size proposed for Albion typically have 32 parking spaces. The company could add more, but that would result in more pavement and less green space, the Broadway Group wrote in its request for a variance.

Dollar General will provide a more detailed description of the store’s appearance and parking lot lighting when it seeks site plan review and a special use permit. First the company wants to make sure it will have a variance to have fewer parking spaces required in the code.

Dollar General sells general merchandise and food. It used to have a store in Albion on Route 31 across from the former GCC campus. The former Dollar General building is now used by a bottle redemption business.

Dollar General has several stores in Orleans County: 11273 Maple Ridge Rd., Medina; 11349 Ridge Rd. in Ridgeway; 30 North Main St. in Lyndonville; 16684 Route 31 in Holley; and 16669 Roosevelt Highway in Kendall.