Family Dollar may soon be in downtown plaza

BELFAST (June 19): The Downtown Shopping Plaza in Belfast has been sold, and the new owners expect a Family Dollar store to locate there in coming months.

The plaza, which was last home to the Main Street Market but is currently vacant, was sold to Belfast Holdings LLC, a partnership that includes Tom Ellis of Bangor.

A building permit issued by the city last week foresees $125,000 worth of improvements to the plaza. The contractor who will do the work said the renovations have begun. There is no scheduled opening date for the refurbished plaza, which was opened in 1964 with a Sampson's supermarket as its major tenant.

The other two spaces in the plaza, one of which had been a Chinese restaurant, the other a rental store, are being advertised for rent.

A spokeswoman for Family Dollar, a national chain based in Charlotte, N.C., said no lease has been signed for a new store in Belfast and she would have no comment until that occurs.

Kiley Rawlins said Family Dollar has 42 stores in Maine, including one on Lincolnville Avenue in Belfast that opened several years ago. She would not comment on whether the existing store would be closed if a new store opens in the downtown plaza.

Rawlins did say Maine has been a good market for the company, which sells new, branded items. Its website says it offers "good quality, low-cost basic merchandise," including clothing, food items and household supplies.

Family Dollar, with 6,300 stores nationwide, was started in 1959 in Charlotte. It recently opened a distribution center in upstate New York that services the Belfast store and others in the Northeast.

Rawlins said Family Dollar is growing in the Northeast. It has stores around the country, from Maine to Arizona.