New Dollar Tree store opens its doors

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

It wasn’t exactly a big-city, Black Friday mob, but there were people waiting in line for the new Dollar Tree to open Thursday morning.

“It’s a great turnout,” said Bill Opperman, who manages the Dollar Tree in Cedar Falls, and was here in Charles City to help out with the opening.

Opperman said 10-12 people were waiting in line when the store opened.

“Today was more of a soft opening, but word got out,” he said. “We’ve had lots of compliments on the store.”

Opperman said the store is planning to have a more formal grand opening, with a ribbon-cutting, at some point in the coming weeks.

The new store is on the site of the former 3C Bistro restaurant, which closed last year. Completion of the new building was initially planned for July, with the new store opening 45 to 60 days after that. It was announced at the beginning of June that the building was finished and would be stocked and ready for business, with employees in place, months ahead of that initial schedule.

Opperman said that Dollar Tree in Charles City will have roughly 15 employees.

Employees were busy right away Thursday. By 9:30 a.m., the parking lot was full and a steady stream of customers was flowing in and out the doors.

One woman, who just wanted to be identified as Darla, was walking out of the store Thursday with a bag filled with items, none of which cost her more than a dollar.

“No, I looked and I didn’t find anything over a dollar,” she said. “It’s a wonderful store, and I’ll be back a lot.”

Darla said she was shopping for “everything.”

“You need to throw out a few things once in a while,” she said. “It’s just great. Everybody needs to shop here.”

Darla said she hoped that the opening of a Dollar Tree in town would lead to more business coming to the area.

“It’s about time Charles City got something like this,” she said. “Now they need to get a good eating place, like Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

Another customer, Randy Bill, showed up at Dollar Tree Thursday morning out of curiosity.

“I just came to snoop, I’m a snooper,” he said. “I’m just gonna go in and see what she looks like.”

Bill said he was very pleased to be shopping at Dollar Tree, but had some concerns about the doors.

“The doors don’t open by themselves and I can’t get in,” he said. “They’re not really made for people in wheelchairs. I don’t have the mobility to open them.”

Bill is disabled and gets around on a motorized wheelchair scooter, and needed someone to hold the door for him to get inside Thursday.

Once inside, however, Bill was pleased to find plenty of space in the aisles for him to maneuver in his scooter. He also found plenty of bargains.

“Everything’s only a dollar,” he said. “Now I don’t have to drive all the way to Mason to get to one.”

Opperman said he didn’t know whether the store had any plans to update to automatic doors in the near future.