The Fred’s sign has come down and a new Dollar General will be coming to downtown Clarksdale this summer.
Contractors were busy this week taking down the Fred’s sign on the outside of the big blue building on Desoto Avenue, with remodeling crews hard at work on the inside gutting the building and getting it ready for new cold food boxes, shelves and restrooms.
Mike Rozier Construction of Greenwood is handling the work, that should be finished in two months.
The building will not have a pharmacy, but will have cold food boxes down the north wall. Dollar General is known as a dry-goods store and will have eight aisles of clothes, bathroom and kitchen items and canned and dried foods.
Clarksdale has been deemed a “food scarce” community with a limited number of grocery stores for its population.
The Clarksdale Dollar General will be one of the company’s largest at 20,800-square-feet. The average Dollar General is about 9,000-square-feet.
Dollar General has bought a number of former Fred’s stores since the longtime retailer declared bankruptcy in September.
Dollar General’s philosophy is to locate between neighborhoods and big-box stores and attract customers will shorter waits in line, less walking in the store and clean facilities with courteous and highly trained staff.
