Little Rock residents may see construction in the next few months as the general store chain Dollar General works to build a store in the community. Before that happens, however, Newton County supervisors need to make sure the land is available.
In a regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Supervisors Monday, Sean Hoffman, a Carthage resident who helps find real estate for stores like Dollar General, told the board he had been working with Supervisor Joe Alexander and County Attorney Jason Mangum to find land in Little Rock for a new store.
However, the future site of the store is still owned by the county. For construction to begin, the county would need to abandon the land.
“They’re fixing to do a Dollar General in Little Rock,” Alexander said. “We need to abandon these.”
The parcels in question, Mangum said, were the site of a potential subdivision in the 1980s. The subdivision was never built, and the land fell to the county.
“When a county accepts a subdivision, they accept the roads and everything,” he said.
To go about abandoning the property and thus clearing the way for Dollar General, Mangum said the Board of Supervisors has two options: a long way and a short way.
“The long way is to find the land no longer has value,” he said.
Once the Board finds the land no longer has value, it can be declared surplus and available for another entity, in this case Dollar General, to purchase.
The short way, Mangum said, is for the Board to vote to abandon the property. If the motion passed, Dollar General would be clear to move in.
The choice, however, might not be up to the Board of Supervisors. For Dollar General to insure the property, which they will almost certainly do, the method of obtaining the property has to pass the insurance underwriters, Mangum explained.
At Monday’s meeting, Mangum said he had reached out Dollar General’s insurance underwriters to see which method they’d prefer but had not heard back.
“I’m waiting to hear back from the people they use,” he said. “I imagine they’ll want us to take the long way.”
Hoffman agreed with Mangum’s assessment adding, “Underwriters are like that.”
Although the legal paperwork still needs to be ironed out, Hoffman said he was grateful for the help Alexander and Mangum had given him in his search. Both men, he said, had done a lot to expedite Dollar General coming to Little Rock.
In other business, the Board of Supervisors:
●•Accepted a $20,000 grant to dispose of waste tires;
●•Approved spending $10,000 to purchase hoses and equipment for Duffee Fire Department’s new fire truck; and
● •Approved burying a dead horse on Chunky-Duffee Road.
