West Valley Dollar Tree opens

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Several West Valley shoppers spent their St. Patrick’s Day not only wearing green but saving some green as well by checking out the new Dollar Tree store at the Orchards Shopping Center.

The dollar store at 140 S. 72nd Ave. opened yesterday. The store manager referred all my questions to Dollar Tree’s headquarters in Chesapeake, VA.
But I didn’t need to look far to see that people were eager to have a new retailer in the neighborhood. The parking lot, once empty during the store’s construction, was nearly full. 

I caught up with Vicky Jessup, 55, and Sandy Lacey, 57, two West Valley residents who shopped at the new location for the first time today.
“It looked really nice,” Lacey said.

Both shoppers said they only shopped at the other Dollar Tree store at 703 West Nob Hill Blvd. occasionally but will likely be regulars at this store because it’s close to home.

“It (is) just handy,” Jessup said.

Now that Dollar Tree is open, the focus is to fill the rest of the storefronts on the northside of the shopping center, said Tim Nelson, co-owner of property north of West Valley Fitness.

(Everything south of and including West Valley Fitness is owned by Rettner Yakima LLC and managed by westside company MK Properties.)

There is an additional 6,300-square-feet next to Dollar Tree and 2,000-square-feet in another building that houses a Mattress Outlet store.

-- Mai Hoang

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