Hillsdale Meijer store plans closer to fruition
“When will the Meijer store be built?”
That question looms in the mind of countless Hillsdale County residents and is a popular discussion item in social media threads from time to time.
In 2017, the city of Hillsdale, Fayette Township and Meijer, Inc. forged a “425 agreement” that would see a Meijer store built on what now sits as farmland near the Frank Beck Chevrolet dealership on M-99 at the northern edge of Hillsdale.
The agreement allows for the extension of city services — such as water, electric, sewer, police and fire protection — to be expanded to the location which technically lays in Fayette Township.
While the agreement did not specify when the store would be built, it did allow for 10 years to make the plans a reality.
Those plans inched closer to reality Monday night — nearly five years after the initial agreement was made — when the Hillsdale City Council briefly discussed a letter they received from Meijer, Inc. in late June requesting services to the property, although a construction start date remains unknown.
Once built, the store will be smaller than the Meijer “super store” in Coldwater and some council members, some of which were not on the council when the initial agreement was made, had questions of how the new box store would affect small business in the downtown.
Mayor Adam Stockford said there is already a Walmart close by in Jonesville and that he believes there are a lot of residents interested in the downtown succeeding.
Part of the initial 425 agreement signed in 2017 calls for the city to extend a water main north to the property, which, at the time, officials said would be beneficial towards further economic development along the stretch of road between Hillsdale and Jonesville as future developers would be able to more easily access city services.
"We don’t have an in stone start date, but the request for services is a guarantee that the project is moving ahead," Stockford said. "We should know much more about the project in the months ahead. This is a wonderful sign that a corporation as choosy as Meijer sees value in Hillsdale, our workforce and our city government. They don’t build places where they don’t believe the local infrastructure can support them. To me, and I hope to the residents, this is a symbol of the positive direction our fair city is moving in."
Meijer has until 2027 to complete construction.
This article originally appeared on Hillsdale Daily News: Hillsdale Meijer store plans closer to fruition
