Supervisors approve business rezoning for unspecified retail store in Wicomico Church

by Jackie Nunnery

HEATHSVILLE—North Carolina based commercial real estate developer Rhetson Companies received approval for the rezoning of a three-acre portion of a parcel on Jessie duPont Memorial Highway to general business.

The Northumberland board of supervisors on Thursday, September 1, voted 4-1 to approve the change. Washington Auto Club, owner of the property, has plans to donate the remaining 8.553 acres of the parcel to a nearby church according to James Parker with Rhetson Companies.

Plans submitted with the request call for a 10,640 square-foot store along with a paved parking lot on an undeveloped parcel between Glenn Lester Company and Bert & Cliff’s Machine Shop and among other businesses on that section of road.

Parker added that a deceleration lane, already reviewed by the Virginia Department of Transportation, is included in the plan “which should reduce any traffic congestion in the area” and that the design of the building and landscaping “would add to the community, make it an amenity not an eyesore.” 

Neither Rhetson nor the county have divulged who the retailer will be, but Parker said the store would be open every day “typically from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.” According to Rhetson’s website, Dollar General is among their portfolio of corporate clients and it was Rhetson who worked on behalf of Dollar General in Mathews County for a conditional use permit….