GOLDEN, Miss. | Crews were busy Tuesday hurriedly stocking shelves and making final preparations for Friday’s opening of the new Dollar General Market store on Red Bay Road in Golden.
Located at the site of what used to be Baymont Incorporated, the 12,236-square-foot store will be the company’s third location in the Red Bay-Belmont area, planting it firmly between the Dollar General Market store in Red Bay and the Dollar General store just four miles away in Belmont. The store will carry groceries as well as the usual line of dollar store merchandise, like the Red Bay store.
Though another Dollar General store opening isn’t really news – the company expected to open about 800 larger format (over 8,500-square-feet) stores in 2022 – what the store will mean for the Town of Golden is a much bigger deal. Town Clerk Tina Payne said she and the town’s mayor and board of aldermen are ecstatic about the anticipated increase in sales tax revenue the town should see once those proceeds start showing up in the State of Mississippi’s monthly sales tax diversions.
“We’re very excited about getting the Dollar General because when covid hit, it really hurt us sales-tax-wise,” Payne said. “This will help us be able to do things other than just pay the bills.”
Payne said when Dollar General representatives had reached out to the town earlier this year about the store, she initially thought they were talking about the new store that opened a few months ago in the Fairview community, since it carries a Golden address as well. However, when the reality hit that the address the company had in mind was in town, the excitement set in.
It’s too early to tell what the sales tax boost will be for the city, and Payne said she had advised the board of aldermen this fall that they could not budget in additional spending based upon the anticipated revenues.
“We couldn’t budget it for this fiscal year just because we don’t know what it’s going to be,” Payne said. “Our budget starts October 1, and this (revenue) is going to open in December. It’ll be January or February before we kind of get a feel of what the taxes are going to do. We can amend the budget at some point to include what we’re bringing in.”
If another town of similar size can be any indication of what Golden officials can expect, it would be Tremont. Dollar General opened a store in the small Itawamba County town south of Red Bay in 2018, and since that time monthly sales tax revenues have increased from roughly $1,700 to $2,697.96 in October 2022. While all of that revenue increase can’t be attributed solely to Dollar General, there is not much else in Tremont to account for the sales tax increase as there are only a handful of businesses.
Still, no matter what the increase is, Payne says it will be a welcome relief. She said the town relies heavily on grants to fund large city purchases, such as vehicles, and having additional room in the budget for other items would be a blessing. She said she didn’t believe the store would compete heavily against the town’s other grocery store, Silver Dollar Sales, and she hopes the store will attract more people to town.
“We’re very appreciative of all our businesses,” Payne said. “Every time one comes in, I get excited. When they opened the towing business, I mean, that’s just a towing company but I was excited.”
