A new grocery shopping option is on the way for the residents of the Village of Creve Coeur.
Earlier this year, the village board of trustees voted to move forward with the sale of a patch of land locally known as Rusche Field to Dollar General for the construction of a Dollar General Market.
Village trustee Cara Paul is chairman of buildings and grounds. She said representatives of Dollar General originally approached the town in August of 2022. Initially, there was some concern about selling the city-owned land at the corner of Rusche Street and Veterans Lane.
“Rusche was a family that was in the village, I'm not sure of the exact history, but they've been around for a very long time,” said Paul. “They were farmers. So that parcel was actually used for agriculture and there was a family farmhouse in the middle of it.”
Paul said the family sold, or donated, the property to the city years ago. Since then, the farmhouse fell into disrepair and was demolished.
Initially, village board members were initially skeptical about the project. Paul said some members were concerned about the feasibility of two Dollar Generals in town; there’s already one on Main Street.
However, a public hearing held by the board found a consistent theme from residents: they wanted a closer option for groceries than East Peoria.
“We left that meeting very strongly with support to build this. So then we subsequently took it to a vote again,” Paul said. “And we had all but one trustee vote yes. And so that led us to come to an agreement with the contract to get that going.”
Paul said the original plan was to build a Dollar General Plus, which is essentially a larger version of the regular store. But she pushed for a Dollar General Market, a model that offers more options for fresh produce and grocery items.
“On paper, it may look like we have a grocery store right down the road,” she said. “But because of some of the closures of grocery stores in Peoria, our East Peoria grocery stores, in my opinion, have been kind of overwhelmed. So a lot of our residents drive, you know, 10 miles or so to Morton to do their shopping there.”
Paul said representatives of Dollar General were amenable to the idea of upgrading the new store to a Market, adding they’re not concerned about the proximity to the Main Street location.
“Dollar General has done a good job selling me personally,” Paul said. “You know, they don’t share their data. They do a lot of research and have a lot of software that just populates all this data showing that our village can handle two stores.”
She said Dollar General Corporate described the other store in Creve Coeur as “overwhelmed with sales.”
The village has accepted a bid of around $150,000 for the Rusche property, and the contract is expected to move forward soon.
There’s no firm timeline in place yet, but Paul said the developer tells her projects usually take 12 to 18 months to complete.
