MILLINOCKET, Maine — Lease negotiations are continuing but the nation’s largest retail farm and ranch supply store chain plans to begin building its latest Maine store at the Northern Plaza Shopping Center on Feb. 27, a company spokesman said Monday.
That would have the store opening “sometime in the summer,” said Michael F. Graham, media relations specialist for Tractor Supply Co. “That could change.”
Negotiations between the landowner at the former Ames store in the Northern Plaza Shopping Center and Michigan-based DMK Development, the retailer’s preferred developer, have been going on for more than a year.
The heavy renovation the space needs and the company’s desire to do it within its budget have absorbed most of the time, said Dan Corcoran, the landowner’s property manager and contracted real estate broker.
Corcoran was surprised that the company would discuss construction dates without a completed lease.
“It is premature for them to start releasing dates. It starts with a signed lease. Then the clock starts ticking,” Corcoran said Monday. “We are working very hard to make it happen and hopefully we will have it signed very soon.”
Tractor Supply’s opening in Millinocket has been the subject of much speculation in the Katahdin region and more than a year of negotiations, Corcoran said. Aside from about a half-dozen thrift stores and a Family Dollar outlet, the region lacks a large-scale general supply retailer and a standalone clothing store.
The closest are in Lincoln, about 32 miles from the plaza.
Based in Brentwood, Tenn., Tractor Supply offers men’s and women’s clothing, home improvement items, livestock supplies, welding and metalworking items, and sporting goods equipment, particularly snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles.
Its stores in Maine include outlets in Augusta, Bangor, Brunswick, Dover-Foxcroft, Houlton, Lewiston, Oxford, Presque Isle, Sanford, Scarborough, Skowhegan and Wilton, according to its website. A store in Windham is under contract to open this spring, company officials have said.
Another 30,000 of the 49,000-square-foot former Ames store is available and is being reviewed by other retailers, Corcoran has said.
Tractor Supply will use another 13,000 square feet of parking lot space for outdoor displays.
Corcoran said Monday that he will be meeting with contractors this week to review the Millinocket site’s building plans.
Well this should be entertaining! The Pro National Park people will not like this. Have at it…
I just figured it was Quimby’s fault this hasn’t happened yet.
Most people locally that support a park study also supports every kind of economic opportunity. I don’t know why everyone thinks that if someone supports a study or proposal that we are automatically Quimby supporters or environmental wackos, some of us are business people that see many possible opportunities with may options.
Your Drinking the Kool- Aid you want to destroy one industry to promote a far inferior one!
I my friend do not want to destroy any industry. I want all industry to survive through as many opportunities as possible so we all can be prosperous. We all have different ideas how to do it. Its to bad we all couldn’t sit down and have a reasonable conversation of the pros and cons.
Good luck, they better take food stamps.
Right on cue!
Everyone in Millinocket is not poor, besides that, people will travel from northern Maine also. Now contact the Reny’s people and get it done.
If they rented snow mobiles and atv’s they could make even more money.
Why would they go to a tractor supply in Millinocket from Northern Maine, There is a TS in Presque Isle and Houlton, matter of fact there is one in Dover and Bangor also. I don’t think it will draw people from to far away. But it is a good thing for the area.
Tractor Supply’s first choice was Medway, but they didn’t have municipal sewer .
I did not know we were surrounded with TSC’s. Yes, it will be good for the area.
What? We love how you continue to dump on Millinocket but try to make it smell good! love it, keep em coming….
I like Millinocket, With my family being here close to 200 hundred years we have allot of family in Millinocket, I often frequent Millinocket. But i think the leadership and some of the attitudes there need to change to have a successful and prosperous future. If you don’t see that also you are living under a rock or you haven’t come out of La Casa sense it closed down.
The people in Medway have always been willing to work with there neighbors to the West, it has worked out fine with East. Millinocket not so much.
….
Great news Millinocket, our town is rebuilding our economy will improve the only people upset with all this good news are Park supporters and Tree huggers!
That is a hateful comment. Just be happy for commerce, don’t give any new business considering the town any reason not to come.
Millinocket is a great town that does not have a good reputation, how about changing that incorrect perception?
Sorry but stating the facts park supporters tried to stop the mill sale and a park would end industry in Millinocket they are the ones who have hurt the Katahdin region.
Outraged Maine taxpayers spoke out against the mill sale , before and after, because the State bought into a pig in a poke, and a dump as well ;that you can’t run away from fast enough. N.P supporters are trying to hold your hand and get you to see the big picture as well. Tough sledding when folks like you seem to have 40 miles of bad road between ears.
Is Millinocket going to Augusta on Wednesday with East to support Herbies bill? The one that wants the state to take the burden of the landfill? East is looking pretty silly right now after hiring 1 full time person at the town hall and looking to add another but they are broke and can’t afford anything. Wonder what cuts they have made in the taxpayer approved budget to pay for the wages of this and the potential new hire and just what cuts did the town really make last year? Doesn’t look like they did anything but shuffle things around so everyone is paid by the income from the ambulance.
This dismal situation underscores the folly of refusing to support even a study of the possible advantages and disadvantages of an NP, much less the NP itself.. This ostrich like mind set will result in true believers selling pencils to snowmobilers by the side of the road as they wait for the mailman to bring the “check” and telling us its great. Fortunately the potential benefits of an NP will extend all across Maine and will be supported by folks in that vast region with the breath of vision and perception necessary to lock into place an important keystone of an eventual business revival in the whole state. The attitude of rabid opponents of a park toward their future prospects is inexplicable. I find it hard to believe that the general population will cast away the potential of an NP to satisfy the crazed perceptions of an isolated minority.
“park supporters tried to stop the mill sale”
Complete nonsense.
I think they have pro park people confused with themselves. They are the only ones trying to stop anything.
Promote what is good.
No need to discount others.
Where are you getting this crap. Are you and Glen Beck really tight.
Thank you for the complement, better then being a Liberal Communist that believes Government should own land and control our lives!
weeooo weeooo
Corporate greed and unionized labor is what has brought done the paper industry!
Paying to much for cost per ton of paper made was its end run, not park supporters!
A new tractor supply store branch is a very good thing. Its revealing that you should feel “all this good news” trumps the positive economic benefits a NP cannot in some degree escape bringing to your area. That you should feel “Park supporters and Tree huggers” are upset over this positive but miniscule economic advance only underscores the chauvinistic paranoia, and delusional dysfunction that substitutes for a rational and objective economic analysis of your dire situation. Unless you dissenthrall yourselves from a cargo cultist mentality; you will be sitting in an unorganized territory in a generation or so, wondering “what happened.”
“….the positive economic benefits a NP…”
Do you have proof of this in regards to the proposed park?
Do you have evidence that I’m blowing smoke rings? One of us is.
As I suspected, just more pablum from the pro-parkers.
Hey squirrel, please continue to tell the good people of the Katahdin area what they need, what to think and how to live. They must enjoy your rambling on and on and on. Your EGO is shining bright!
Is your name Archie Bunker? You know one of those people that is very closed minded.
I spent four years as a Store Manager for TSC. Trust Me. If they would go to the hassle of developing a store in Millinocket you can bet they have done the research needed to provide a prosperous business there. That company has been around for 74 years for a reason and operates debt free. They pay bonuses from top to bottom and provide benefits at a cost well below the industry norm. I opened my store in a “mill town” and it brought well over 3 million in sales to an area much like millinocket. They are a destination store that will draw shoppers from up to 60 miles and that helps everyone in that town. I wish them the best of luck in that town and whomever the DM puts in that store will be a good thing for the millinocket community.
How many local folks will an average sized store employ?
It will provide taxes to the town and encourage people to come shop. More traffic will encourage more business and tourism.
typically they will have around 12-14 full and part time positions.
And that includes all the management they bring in. Which means the actual number of jobs is more like 4 or 5 15 hour no benefit jobs. IGA has more employees than that even at your estimates!
no, they only bring in one person, the store manager, all other applicant’s are hired locally. From the 12-14 other positions, 3 are full time management positions along with another full time position for a reciever in the warehouse. another 9-10 positions are 20-25 hour part time positions. All pay bonuses monthly provided that sales goals are met. For many employees that can mean an additional 25% more pay per month. No other retailer that I know of offers that. And all that in a 15k sqft box. I helped open 9 of their stores while I worked for them. They are one of the best retailers to work for.
I like that they are a company that offers incentives. When they profit so do the employee’s. Great way to incorporate job satisfaction.
Never anything good to say, go back to your sad little world.
How many people live within 6o miles of Millinocket ? Not many I’ll bet,
………more moose than people.
and why would anyone from Lincoln travel north when the can go south to Bangor which has people and stores. …..
Snow mobiling, ATV trail, places to eat, climb Mount Katahdin
Bangor would be twice as far away as Millinocket from Lincoln.
But Bangor has a 100 other stores, movies and restaurants to make a trip south more attractive ……
Dont talk like that Think12 will not like you and call you a Millinocket hater, Common sense doesn’t make any sense to some people.
Have you been to the ghost town that is the Tractor Supply Store on Broadway in Bangor?
actually I have. If you’re comparing it to say a big box store it is a “ghost town”. at least I can get in grab my jeans, a bag of feed and maybe a couple tools I need and get out in 5 minutes.
How are the prices?
I’d grab those things quickly, because I’m not sure they’ll be around much longer.
Tractor Supply is obviously banking on the local economy improving. So you think that means they’re counting on, or counting against, a NP?
counting on
This is another good thing for the Millinocket area. Good luck!
I give ’em two years before they realize they made a mistake…Just like Lowes in Ellsworth.
The building is in dire need of some serious repair toooo.
It would be nice to see the parking lot paved and stores occupied.
Thank God for snow and ice the hole just passed Family Dollar heading toward IGA is big enough to swallow a car tire and deep enough too!
What on earth are you doing in Millinocket? Don’t you despise that place and it’s people?
It wont last long and its a far cry from whats really needed.
Millinocket is short on drivers to take all the methadone junkies too bangor for thier fix. Looking for a job check with Penquis. :)
If you need a ride, just holler and I’ll do it for gas and meals.
They won’t be needing Drivers to the meth clinics because LePage is cuttin’ off all their MaineCare. No insurance, no meth, awwwwwwwww let’s have a pity party NOT!
There used to be a bunch of tractors by the side of rt.1 south of Machias. Does anybody know what happened there?
This sounds like a variety store. They do really well in many parts of the country.
Yes, the NP proposal was voted down in that area, perhaps with your infinite wisdom and inflated ego you could explain to them how the NP would have saved them from doom, you know, just like what you are doing for the people in the Katahdin area.
Is there a new shopping place opening up in East?
What a great fit for Millinocket. The town needs a strong balance of manufacturing, targeted retail and niche tourism. Working on all three sectors will bring a lot to the region.