Boykins to get chain store

Published 8:48 am Wednesday, September 23, 2009

BOYKINS—Dollar General is coming to Boykins.

Turner & Associates Realty Inc., a Nashville, Tenn., firm that works as developers for Dollar General Corp. of Goodlettsville, Tenn., announced Friday that it has purchased a parcel at the northwest corner of Main Street and Bass Avenue for the new free standing store.

“Dollar General will be a great asset to our town and community,” Boykins Mayor Spier Edwards said Tuesday. “They will provide a variety of merchandise to our citizens and will also be opening up employment for approximately 15 part- and full-time employees.”

Larry Turner, a principal associate for the realty firm, said in a written statement that without the assistance of Town Clerk Pat Draper and Edwards, “the many problems that had to be overcome to develop the site most probably would not have been solved. We thank them and the other employees of the Town of Boykins for their help and support.”

Tri-South Contractors Inc. began construction of the store on Monday, bringing an excavator to the site and preparing to demolish a house that currently sits on the parcel. Several trees on the property will also come down, and a retention pond will be constructed behind the new building, which will face Main Street.

Bob Finley, job superintendent for the Grayson, Ga.-based contracting firm, said Monday that construction should be completed before Christmas.

According to Turner, the building and land will be owned by Boykins Retail Partners, of which Turner & Associates will be a general partner. Dollar General will sign a long-term lease for the building and operate the business.

Turner said his firm purchased lots from Sherman Vincent and George Thorpe for the store.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Yvette Brozzo, who lives on Main Street just south of the store site, said of Dollar General’s pending arrival. “Hopefully it will help draw more people in to the other businesses that are down here.”

Brozzo said she currently drives 20 minutes to Franklin for things like toilet paper and dishwashing liquid.

“It will be very convenient to have something right here,” she said.