NILES, Ohio (WKBN) — Niles City Council voted Monday to allow another dollar store in the city.
The special meeting was called to decide if council would make an exception to a previous moratorium limiting the number of dollar stores within city limits.
The discussion was heated between Niles City Council members. In the end, the vote was 6-1 in favor of suspending the previous legislation.
“It’s not an ideal situation, but I think it’s, like I said, damage-control-wise, and you’re bringing out a multibillion-dollar company to the downtown area. That’s, I would imagine would want to be there in the long term. So, take that headache away,” said Jimmy Julian, Councilman-at-Large.
The former Sparkle building on Main Street in downtown Niles could soon become the city’s sixth dollar store. The property owner recently brought in Platz Realty Group, and Dollar Tree has shown interest in buying it.
Julian says the realty group hasn’t seen much interest from other potential buyers, but not all of his colleagues are on board with the idea.
“They are concerned and see what they should be. I am, too. We don’t want vacant buildings. We want to populate these buildings. We don’t want it to become Niles’ identity. We want to try to attract different businesses,” said Councilman Aaron Johnstone. “Again, when you have one directly across the street from you, I think the needs of the community have been met, and I’d like to see what else we could bring to the downtown. That’s all.”
The initial moratorium was passed in October in a 7-0 vote after hearing several complaints from the community about the number of dollar stores.
“The purpose of a moratorium is to hit the pause button so we can look at our zoning laws and make sure that this is going in the direction the community wants it to, and we were on board with all of this even as of March. We had to make an amendment to this, and everybody was on board,” Johnstone said.
Julian says the moratorium made sense at the time but has now become an obstacle in eliminating vacancies from the city. He says the decision to make the exception will have a positive impact, with Dollar Tree pledging to bring 20 to 25 new jobs to the city.
“They would obviously renovate the property to their business model, which I believe that property does need a lot of renovating. So, I just believe it’s the best situation for damage control for the downtown area not to have another vacant building,” Julian said.
The vote will not eliminate the moratorium. It will only make an exception for this particular store.