Century III Mall
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| Century III Mall | |
| Facts and statistics | |
|---|---|
| Location | 3075 Clairton Rd West Mifflin, PA 15123 |
| Opening date | 1979 |
| Owner | Simon Property Group |
| No. of floors | 3 (department stores are two levels; Dick's Sporting Goods and Steve and Barry's are one level) |
| Website | Century III Mall |
Century III Mall is the second largest enclosed shopping mall in the Pittsburgh region. Situated in the southern suburb of West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, the three-level mall contains 1.286 million square feet of retail space and about 125 stores (out of approximately 180 locations). Anchor retailers at Century III include Dick's Sporting Goods, JCPenney, Macy's, Macy's Furniture Galleries, Sears, and Steve and Barry's. It also features other stores such as Old Navy, Journey's, Footlocker, Champs, GameStop, the Verizon Store, AT&T wireless, T-Mobile, Sprint, , Cricket, and Piercing Pagoda. There are numerous food choices such as Auntie Anne's, Subway, Chic-a-fil, Steak n Shake, and Olive Garden.
When the mall was built in 1979, it was the 3rd largest enclosed shopping center in the world. The site is a recycled former U.S. Steel industrial area, a huge slag pile once known as "Brown's dump". Slag, a waste product of steel making, had for years been transported by rail cars from the mills of Pittsburgh to this once remote valley. The pile grew until it became an artificial mountain, as hard as concrete and large enough to contain a mall (as well as many satellite stores). Because of abandoned coal mines beneath the construction site, real concrete had to be pumped underground before construction could begin; more concrete was said to be used in the filling of the old mines than was used in the mall itself.
In 1997, the mall underwent a complete remodeling. In 1999, it lost a major tenant when Federated Department Stores closed the Lazarus store due to underperforming sales. Other major stores, such as T.J. Maxx & More and Wickes Furniture, have since closed, only to be replaced by stores typically found in less productive and/or mid-market malls. As early as 2003, Century III Mall was about 20% vacant [1], and as of 2006 it was 30% vacant [2] with much of its spaces occupied by discount stores and local specialty stores selling odds and ends.
Century III Mall was recently put on the market by Simon Property Group, the owner of the mall, claiming that it doesn't fit the company's portfolio of more upscale malls, such as Pittsburgh's Ross Park Mall and the nearby South Hills Village mall.
[edit] Anchors
- Dick's Sporting Goods (58,371 sq ft.)
- JCPenney (173,276 sq ft.)
- Macy's (152,948 sq ft.)
- Macy's Furniture Gallery (168,132 sq ft.)
- Sears (231,004 sq ft.)
- Steve & Barry's (48,079 sq ft.)
[edit] Former anchors
- Gimbels (later split between Marshall's and TJ Maxx, latter eventually becoming TJ Maxx & More)
- Horne's (later Lazarus)
- Kaufmann's (now Macy's)
- Kaufmann's Furniture (now Macy's Furniture Gallery)
- Lazarus (later Kaufmann's Furniture)
- Marshall's (later Wickes Furniture)
- Montgomery Ward (later Horne's)
- TJ Maxx/TJ Maxx & More (now Steve & Barry's)
- Wickes Furniture (now Dick's Sporting Goods)
The anchor location which now houses Macy's Furniture Gallery & Clearance Center has a very full history. In 1979, it was built as a new location for the Chicago based Montgomery Ward chain, which was attempting to expand its presence in the Pittsburgh area. This Wards location only lasted a few years because the chain went bankrupt and was liquidated. In 1986, the location then became a unit of The Joseph Horne Company (owned by the New York City based Associated Dry Goods Corporation) which then closed its nearby Brentwood store. In 1994, the location changed names again when the Cincinnati based Federated Department Stores purchased Horne's and converted the chain's locations into it's own Lazarus regional nameplate. In 1998 after operating a few years as Lazarus, Federated closed several locations including the Century III store. The location then became a unit of Kaufmann's (which was the largest of the three Pittsburgh based department store chains), who then opened a Furniture Gallery in this location. Kaufmann's was a division of the St. Louis based May Department Stores Company. On July 18th 2005, Federated Department Stores purchased the May Department Stores Company. This purchase brought Kaufmann's under Federated ownership. On Sept. 9, 2006, Federated converted all former May Company regional department store nameplates, including Kaufmann's, into Macy's as part of a nationwide rebranding program. This caused the Kaufmann's Furniture Gallery location to be returned once again to Federated Department Stores ownership and renamed Macy's Furniture Gallery.
[edit] External links
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