The new Dollar General store in Towamensing isn’t slated to open until at least Monday, due to a misunderstanding between the stakeholders behind the project and the township that was highlighted during Thursday’s supervisors meeting.

Ingram Thornton addressed the board on behalf of Capital Growth Buchalter, the Alabama-based developer facilitating the construction of the new store on Interchange Road. He appealed to the board, asking them to give Carl Faust, the township zoning officer, permission to award a temporary certificate of occupancy, an action that would conflict with a resolution passed by the board in the past.

Enacted in 2013, the resolution stipulates that a certificate of occupancy cannot be issued by a building code official until requirements under both the Uniform Construction Code and “other laws,” which include various statutes and ordinances applied to buildings, such as the Sewage Facilities Act, are met. Under this provision, the township engineer, Greg Haas, must also inspect a new building before its opening.

According to Thornton, that regulation wasn’t made clear to those working on the new Dollar General.

“I think from our previous communication, we weren’t aware that the occupancy was requiring an engineer’s inspection,” he told the board.

Thornton made a case for the store’s need to open. He said its start has been delayed by multiple obstacles, and that a lot of effort has gone into trying to launch the operation.

“We’ve worked just feverishly to try to get that work complete so that we can fulfill our obligation with the tenant to get the store open,” Thornton said.

“Dollar General desperately needs to open. They have employees there counting on income and other things, and they’re not working right now,” he continued.

Thornton said that the store had planned to open Friday, or even today. But any hope of a weekend opening was dashed by the fact that Haas said he won’t be able to make it to the property until Monday morning.

According to the board, the issue is out of their hands. Penny Kleintop, chairwoman and treasurer of the board, said that the supervisors aren’t involved in the process of awarding a certificate of occupancy.

“It’s not up to us,” Kleintop said.

Ultimately, the board conceded, the authority of whether or not to issue a certificate of occupancy resides with Faust, who, they said, wouldn’t likely do so unless Haas had conducted his inspection of the building.

“We have this resolution in place, and if we waver from this resolution, that sets a precedence, and we would have to do that for any other business that would come before us,” Kleintop said to conclude the board’s position.