One of the main tenants in a Millinocket shopping plaza that sold last year for double its assessed value will close this spring.
The Dollar Tree store on Central Street in Millinocket will close nine months after the shopping plaza where it’s located, the Northern Shopping Plaza, sold to a New Hampshire company hoping to revitalize retail in the former mill town.
The store is scheduled to close in mid-April, said Kayleigh Campbell, a spokesperson for Dollar Tree Inc., which owns both the Dollar Tree and Family Dollar chains.
Campbell declined to specify why the Millinocket store was closing, but said Dollar Tree occasionally closes stores due to myriad reasons such as rent increases, property sales and lease terminations.
The dollar store closure news comes three months after Dollar Tree closed its Madawaska store. The discount retailer also operates a Family Dollar store nearby at 781 Central St. in Millinocket. Campbell did not respond to a question about the future of that store.
Uri Pe’er, the owner of Northeast Living LLC, which owns the Northern Shopping Plaza, declined to comment and referred questions to Dollar Tree.
Pe’er bought the mall last July for $1.6 million, more than twice its assessed value of $738,000. He said he was drawn to the property because of its proximity to Baxter State Park and people moving to the Katahdin region.
The plaza is among Millinocket’s top 10 property tax payers, according to a review of the town’s assessment records. Other tenants include Tractor Supply and Millinocket House of Pizza.
Millinocket has striven to rebuild its economy after the Great Northern Paper mill closed in 2008, draining the town of hundreds of jobs. Local nonprofit Our Katahdin bought the mill site in 2017 and has slowly started attracting businesses — including a data center and an aquatic energy testing site — to the property.
Dollar Tree reported in November that it had made $6.42 billion in sales between July and September last year, up from $6.18 billion during the same period the year before. That announcement came the same day the retailer announced that it would raise most of its product prices to $1.25 from $1.00.
Dollar stores have become ubiquitous in rural and small towns, where its business model has flourished due to its reliance on low-wage labor and cheap goods.