For the second time in a year, Dollar General is planning a new store in Old Town, as well as one less than two miles down the road in Milford, according to officials in those two communities.

At an Old Town planning board meeting in January, plans were announced to tear down the old Lewis Stairs School building and built a new store at that location at the corner of Main Street and Penny Road. That store would have been 70 feet by 130 feet and employed 12 to 15 people.

It was anticipated work on the new store would begin this spring. It later was announced that Dollar General had dropped its plan for the Old Town store. At the time, City Manager Bill Mayo said it was believed Dollar General, which has expanded rapidly in the past couple years, had seen lesser revenues at some of its newer stores than anticipated, and was slowing its growth plans.

But this week, city officials said that Dollar General has now announced it intends to go into the old Family Dollar store in the Hannaford plaza. That store was one of more than 300 Family Dollars that Dollar general purchased earlier this year; the store has been closed since early spring, but Dollar General representatives have indicated it will be reopened under its name in September.

At the same time, there has been persistent talk of a Dollar General store coming to Milford as well, to be located near the intersection of Rtes. 2 and 178. Old Town officials said they were told that plan had been scrapped, but according to Town manager Chris Reardon, it is very much alive, with a presentation on the plan to go before the Milford planning board on Aug. 8.

Dollar General, which is based out of Goodlettsville, TN, has more than 13,000 convenient, stores in 43 states; it announced last summer it planned to open 1,000 new stores this year.

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