Tube City Almanac

March 24, 2006

Cheapie Strip Malls Are Shopping For Trouble

Category: default || By jt3y

Time was that when you wanted to build a shopping center, you had to make sure there was at least one "anchor tenant" before anyone would loan you the money. Typically, developers tried to get at least one, maybe two, supermarkets; a drug store; and a variety store or department store.

The region's first large regional shopping center --- Miracle Mile on William Penn Highway in Monroeville --- followed the pattern, which persisted into the '90s when Oak Park Mall opened in White Oak with a Shop 'n Save, a Thrift Drugs and a Busy Beaver as anchors.

But lately --- say, the last five years or so --- I'm noticing a new trend: Small "speculative" strip malls. These things are popping up all over the area like mushrooms after a spring rain.

The newest is on Route 48 (Jacks Run Road) in North Versailles Township, not far from East Allegheny High School. There's also one on East Eighth Avenue in Munhall, across from the Tri-Boro Credit Union, and another is about to be built on the old Reliance Steel property in the 11th Ward.

I call them "speculative" because many of them seem to be built without anchor tenants in the hopes of attracting speciality shops and small retailers, and they typically seem to sit empty for a few months before someone --- usually a dollar store --- moves in.

The other tenants tend to be wig parlors, nail salons, cell-phone dealers and other third-tier retailers. No offense intended to the people who run those, but when your biggest neighbor is "Dollar Tree," you're not exactly competing with Neiman-Marcus.

For the most part, these shopping centers seem to be cheaply built on oddly-shaped lots. Within a few years, I suspect they're going to be eyesores and will stand mostly empty, but by then, the banks and developers who threw them up will have made their money back.

I also suspect they're partly responsible for the decline of three of the area's retail hubs --- Century III Mall in West Mifflin; Olympia Shopping Center, straddling Versailles' border with the city; and the former Norwin Shopping Center in North Huntingdon. (Mammoth Wal-Marts in North Versailles, West Mifflin and --- soon --- North Huntingdon are undoubtedly having an impact as well.)

In short, we have way too much cheap retail space for our population, and the bottom is falling out.

I'm not much of a shopper, and wasn't a mall rat in high school, so I don't often get to Century III. But I was there in January and was shocked at the number of empty storefronts.

From all appearances, Century III is on the short slide to oblivion that ends with the parking lot being used for a flea market, a la Greengate and Eastland malls.

I'd estimate 30 percent of the aisle "frontage" between the anchor tenants in Century III is now vacant. Of the remaining occupied space, much is occupied by dollar stores and other discounters.

Last week, the Trib reported that Century III's owners are selling the mall, which makes me suspect that long-term forecasts show that its prospects are bleak.

Olympia Shopping Center, which opened in the late 1950s, has looked pretty good until fairly recently, when the Ames discount chain collapsed, leaving a big empty building (the old Zayre's --- remember the giant neon letters on its roof?) behind.

Then, Scozio's, which operated the Shop 'n Save in the plaza (along with the one at Oak Park, about two miles away), closed the store and reopened it as a "Save-a-Lot."

This week, Pat Cloonan of The Daily News reported that Scozio's plans to convert its Oak Park store to a Giant Eagle. At the same time, according to rumors, the Giant Eagle in Olympia will close. Merchants and Versailles residents are petitioning Giant Eagle to keep the store open.

A small ray of sunshine (or, with apologies to Oliver, is it "starshine"?) has come to Olympia with the news that Tri-Star Ford is buying the old Ames building and turning it into a car dealership.

But car dealers don't generate the kind of steady traffic that a shopping center needs to thrive. Supermarkets make good anchors for shopping centers, after all, because most families visit a supermarket at least once a week. Once they're in the shopping center, they're likely to stop at the other stores. The loss of the Giant Eagle would be a heavy blow for Olympia --- the Save-a-Lot has its partisans, but it's no substitute for a name-brand supermarket.

I'm of the considered opinion that the American economy in general has become too dependent on retailing. I also think that all of the retailing that has sprung up in Pleasant Hills, West Mifflin, White Oak, North Versailles, et al, is not sustainable, and those empty stores in Norwin, Olympia and Century III are the early warning signs.

If and when the economy hits a recession, I think we're going to be polluted with empty, decaying strip malls.

Let's hope that the powers that be --- the people who invest in real estate and the municipal planners who are trying to attract development --- are seeing the same thing. Folks, please --- we don't need any more retail development. Please don't try to bring any more.

Otherwise, the Mon-Yough area is cruising for a business collapse that will be as ugly in some ways as the closure of National-Duquesne Works, Homestead Works and other steel plants in the 1980s.

...

To Do This Weekend: On that cheerful note, let's eat, drink and be merry! Tonight, Dave Iglar plays the Large Hotel, Route 51. Call (412) 384-9950 ... Tomorrow, championship hockey returns to the Mellon Arena, no thanks to those flightless waterfowl. Instead, the Eagles of my alma mater will be playing Quaker Valley High School in the Penguin Cup for the seventh straight year. Face-off is 1 p.m. (Tip o' the Tube City hard hat to Alert Reader Marky). ... McKeesport Symphony Orchestra presents "Close-Up Encounters," 7:30 p.m. Saturday at McKeesport Area High School, Eden Park Boulevard. The concert features a "meet the artist" reception. Call (412) 664-2854 ... Stewartsville Lions Club holds a pancake breakfast and craft show from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at the Penn's Woods Civic Center on Colonial Manor Road, North Huntingdon. Just don't mix 'em up and pour maple syrup on someone's knick-knacks, because we all know how painful that can be. Call (412) 751-4308.






Your Comments are Welcome!

The investment for those types of strip malls are relatively small compared to the “anchor” type. The anchor stores have specific requirements that must be provided which raise the cost of construction and usually are not readily suited for the typical retailer. Accordingly, it is cheaper to put up four walls and partion off spaces as needed. Mon-Vue Plaza in Port Vue is a good example. It has a “Dollar General” in a portion of a space where a “Super-Duper” grocery store used to be.
terry - March 24, 2006




A very concise, thoughtful analysis. You can see a similar phenomenon along Route 30 in Westmoreland County, from the Irwin interchange of the turnpike all the way into Unity Township. There, these small shopping centers are thrown into the spaces between the older car dealerships, restaurants, etc.
Jonathan Potts (URL) - March 24, 2006




Terry: Good points! And, I am very familiar with that Super Duper (formerly run by the DiGiorgio family, and previously a Super Dollar). I used to shop there all the time. Unfortunately, my neighbors felt it made more sense to drive to West Mifflin or White Oak to save 10 cents on a can of beans, and the DiGiorgios had to close. Now Port Vue (like Liberty Borough) no longer has a grocery store. (Both have convenience stores.)

Jon: Thanks for the atta-boy, and you make good points as well. The stretch of 30 between the Irwin interchange and St. Vincent College was never very nice, but it has become painful to drive, and a lot of the “new development” consists of these ticky-tacky strip malls.
Webmaster (URL) - March 24, 2006




I grew up in Irwin and can remember the filled Norwin Shopping Center, the neon lights on Zayres and going to Eastland with my grandparents. Coming back home, I sometimes will just drive past these places to see if anything is changing. Norwin breaks my heart, Eastland, long since RIP and I always was amazed that Olympia seemed to hold it together. It will be sad to see it fall, but my father works for the grocery store at Oak Park and I think that converting to a Giant Eagle is the best long term solution to that store. I enjoy reading about McKeesport and the surrounding areas. Keep up the good work.
Scott (URL) - March 24, 2006




As much as I love retail in all its forms, I have to agree with your analysis. Shopping has become so much more than storefronts and the options are seemingly endless. In order to make a new retail shopping center work, it’s got to count for something beyond the short-term returns, because without a valid reason for being, it empties out and becomes an eyesore in less than ten years. I can think of so many examples of this.

How I found you and your sites was reading about the demise of Eastland Mall actually, even though I didn’t make a connection between the dementia website and an actual person until later. It was a decent complex that got outmoded by Century III, which in turn was outmoded by Wal-Mart and the like. The cycle is heartbreaking. Eastland was more a nostalgic loss because it wasn’t a particularly well-designed mall, but Century III’s demise proves there are some serious cracks in the system that is endemic of the problem of overbuilding. It’s a good mall, always has been, but there’s so many choices out there it’s pretty much irrelevant.

Somewhat related but off-topic: Pittsburgh’s been on my mind a lot because of the imminent demise of Kaufmann’s. Even though it was a carbon copy of the other May stores (especially in the suburbs), the loss still hurts. More bland Macy’s stores is not the solution. More relevant merchandise at better prices with a modicum of service is. But I digress.

I’m glad to see that Boscov’s is coming in to replace Kaufmann’s in part, though to see proud names like Joseph Horne, Gimbel’s and Kaufmann’s give way to a somewhat rural store that plays “register roulette” is somewhat disheartening. Not for nothing, Boscov’s is more than a little corny sometimes.

Still, I like Boscov’s and I think it could give malls like Century III, Monroeville, and South Hills Village a shot in the arm because Boscov’s plays to the beat of its own drummer, which sounds a lot like a somewhat dated disco snare at times, but is a funky, distinctive beat overall.
Steven Swain - March 25, 2006




Nice piece, as always. I’ve been thinking about doing something similar for the McKnight retail strip. Not much has been said about it, but I’m seeing more and more empty storefronts there — everything is being sucked further north, into Cranberry. The exhurbs are doing to the suburbs what the suburbs did to the small towns that surround the city.

Steven Swain — could you explain what is meant by “register roulette?” Your description of Boscov’s more or less matches my perception of the chain, but that one phrase kind of threw me.
Bob (URL) - March 27, 2006




I had never heard of “Register Roulette” either, but a Google search indicates it’s a game you play —- either with scratch cards or spinning a wheel —- to see what your discount at the register will be.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22register+roulette%22+boscov&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1

Personally, I think Boscov’s has a chance to do OK in southwestern Pennsylvania for the very reasons that Steve describes … we like things a little bit “corny.”
Webmaster (URL) - March 27, 2006




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