Monroeville Mall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Monroeville Mall | |
| [[Image:For Image Click [1]|200px|Monroeville Mall ]] | |
| Facts and statistics | |
|---|---|
| Location | Monroeville, Pennsylvania |
| Opening date | 1969 |
| Developer | Oxford Development Company |
| Management | CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. |
| Owner | CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. |
| No. of stores and services | 180+ |
| No. of anchor tenants | 3 |
| Total retail floor area | 1,128,747 square feet (104,864.0 m²) |
| Parking | 6,800 spaces |
| No. of floors | 2 (Boscov's and Macy's are three levels, while JCPenney is two levels) |
| Website | [2] |
Monroeville Mall is a two-level, enclosed shopping mall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburgh. It is located near the junction of I-376 and I-76. It sits on 170 acres (0.7 km²) and has 1,128,747 square feet (104,864 m²) of leaseable space on two floors.
Developed by Oxford Development Company, the property was acquired in 2004 for $232 million by CBL & Associates Properties, Inc., a REIT based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Recently, the mall finished a remodeling project to compete with several newer, more luxurious malls in the Pittsburgh area. It is one of two CBL malls owned in the Pittsburgh area, the other being Westmoreland Mall in Greensburg. Both malls are marketed together through various media outlets.
Contents |
[edit] History
In the mid 60s 110 acres (0.45 km²) of the 280-acre (1.1 km²) Harper Mine area was cleared to build the 1.13 million square foot complex. $2.5 million dollars was spent to excavate nearly 5,000,000 cubic yards (3,800,000 m³) of dirt. The $30 million dollar building began construction in 1967 and two years later, the doors to the Monroeville Mall were opened. The Mall contained 125 stores on two levels and housed The Monroeville Mall Ice Palace, a world class ice skating rink. The parking lot contained 6,500 spaces. The Mall was decorated with fountains and plant life that flourished under enormous skylights. One end of the Mall featured a large yellow clock tower that housed 12 animated puppets, each one representing an ethnic group in the Pittsburgh area. One puppet performed every hour, and all performed together at 1pm and 6pm. At the opposite end of the Mall sat a large fountain, surrounded by a seating area. The Mall was anchored on three sides by two story department stores. Hornes and Gimbels flanked the Mall, while JC Penney sat in the middle, directly across from the Ice Palace. The stores contained in the Mall ranged from high fashion to hardware. There was a bank, several places to eat, pharmacies, pubs and even a ministry center. Over the next few years, many changes were made to the Mall's layout. In 1984, much to the dismay of local citizens, the Ice Palace was replaced by a food court. The clock tower was removed, and was replaced by a holiday children’s train and an escalator. The fountain at the opposite end has been removed in lieu of a Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Playspace. Gimbels has been replaced Kaufmann's and then by Boscovs, and Hornes has been replaced by Lazarus and then Macys. In early 2004, the Monroeville Mall was purchased for $231.2 million dollars by CBL & Associates, a firm out of Tennessee.
[edit] Facts
- Monroeville Mall was developed by Oxford Development Company in 1969, and at the time it was considered to be the largest shopping mall in the United States.
- Monroeville Mall was home to the first world-class ice skating rink in an enclosed mall on the East Coast. It closed in February 1984, to be converted into a food court, which still exists today.
- The Monroeville Mall property was once proposed to be the site for the now defunct Three Rivers Stadium in the early stages of development.
[edit] Dawn of the Dead
Monroeville Mall is most famous as the filming location for the movie, Dawn of the Dead, the 1978 cult horror classic, directed by George A. Romero. In 1977, George A. Romero began filming Dawn of the Dead on location at the Monroeville Mall. The Mall was used as a fortress to protect four human survivors from a world taken over by the walking dead. Romero used the location to its fullest, beautifully displaying the Mall and its vastness, almost giving the Mall a cavernous feel. The movie went on to become a huge hit worldwide, leaving legions of dedicated fans in its wake. Fans travel far and wide, sometimes from other countries, just to have a chance to visit the location. [3].
- Monroeville Mall is also the setting for the survival board game Mall of Horror.
- Rock group My Chemical Romance recorded a song, "Early Sunsets Over Monroeville", based on the film Dawn of the Dead.
- The Pittsburgh punk rock group Drunk by Six recorded the song "Dawn of the Dead" because of the filming of the original motion picture being so close to Pittsburgh.
[edit] Media
- The fictional Pittsburgh suburb of Libertyville, Pennsylvania in the Stephen King novel Christine was inspired by Monroeville, Pennsylvania and the Monroeville Mall.
- The fictional mall of Willamette named "Willamette Parkview Mall" of Dead Rising was also inspired by Monroeville Mall as the same setting as Dawn of the Dead (The creators had noted that the game was not developed, approved or licensed by the owners or creators of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead.)
- A second city of Monroeville was started in the online browser based MMORG Urban Dead on the 25th of February 2008 including Monoeville Mall, as a promotion for the release of the film Diary of the Dead.
Some scenes from the film Zack and Miri Make a Porno, directed by Kevin Smith, were filmed in the mall[citation needed].
[edit] Mall tenants
Monroeville Mall is home to over 180 stores and restaurants, which also includes the District shops and the Annex.
[edit] Anchor stores
- Boscov's (234,538 sq ft., formerly Gimbels, then Kaufmann's)
- JC Penney (210,467 sq ft)
- Macy's (240,526 sq ft., formerly Horne's, then Lazarus)
[edit] Former Anchors
In 1969, the Monroeville Mall opened with The Joseph Horne Company, Gimbels, and JC Penney as the original anchors.
In 1970, the entire Gimbels chain was purchased by the tobacco comglomerate BATUS. In 1986, after years of declining sales, BATUS announced that Gimbel's was on the block. Unable to find a buyer for the entire chain, BATUS closed down the entire Gimbels Pittsburgh division, selling or closing all locations. Some of the more attractive mall locations, such as Monroeville Mall, were taken over by the St. Louis based May Department Stores Company for its Pittsburgh based Kaufmann's division. This effectively caused the shuttering of the entire Gimbels Pittsburgh division. The Monroeville Mall location was closed and completely renovated, including the addition of a third floor, before reopening as Kaufmann's. In 2006, when The May Department Stores Company was purchased by Cincinnati based Federated Department Stores, this store was acquired by Boscov's as Macy's was already located in the former Horne's spot at the opposite end of the mall.
The Joseph Horne Company (owned by the New York City based Associated Dry Goods Corporation) operated in Monroeville Mall until 1995. In October of 1986, The May Department Stores Company merged with Associated Dry Goods Corporation. May promptly sold The Joseph Horne Company to a group of local investors. In 1995, Federated Department Stores acquired Horne's and renamed all former locations under its own Lazarus regional nameplate. In 2005, Federated eventually merged all its divisions (including the former Joseph Horne/Lazarus locations) into Macy's as part of a nationwide rebranding program.
[edit] External links
- Monroeville Mall
- O.T.I.S.: Odd Things I've Seen
- Monroeville Mall 1978 Tour
- Monroeville Mall Revisited (defunct)
- Monroeville Mall Satellite Image
- Harper's Mine Birthplace of Monroeville Mall
- Monroeville Mall Ice Palace gift to the area
- Worker dies of burns suffered in mall accident
- Man helps nab purse snatcher
- Urban Dead Monroeville
|
|||||||||||||||||
![[1]](http://www.deadohio.com/mallsign2.jpg){kind=link}