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.
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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.
Another day, another weird news story to send folks at 201 Lysle Blvd. reaching for their Maalox. Yesterday, Our Fair City made national and international headlines again with the news that a 24-year-old woman who went missing as a 14-year-old in 1996 had been located not far from the neighborhood where she grew up.
She told police she'd been locked in a house on Soles Street for most of the last 10 years, held captive by a security guard at her former elementary school, Cornell.
According to published and broadcast reports, police learned of the case when she confided in the owner of the former UDF store on Versailles Avenue that she had been going under an assumed name for a decade, and was, in fact, reported missing as a teen-ager. She told the man that she was frightened for her safety.
The owner called police; the cops arrested the security guard and charged him what the Post-Gazette euphemistically calls "a variety of sex crimes." (The Tribune-Review reports that the charges are statutory sexual assault and three counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.)
But he hasn't been charged with kidnapping ... at least yet. (The security guard's attorney says the girl wasn't held against her will.)
Picksberg's TV news yackers reported the story as a "miracle." According to news accounts, the woman has told police that she lived in the security guard's house along with his elderly parents and his son, now in his early 20s, but they never knew she was there.
She spent much of the time locked in a bedroom, according to news accounts. Other members of his family weren't allowed to open the door; sometimes, she had to use a bucket as a toilet.
In a very thorough account in the Tribune-Review, Jill King Greenwood writes that the victim secretly dated the security guard as a girl and decided to move in with him in the hopes they would eventually marry. She agreed to keep their dalliance --- and even the fact that she was living with him --- a secret from his parents until he decided to tell them.
Writes Greenwood: "She was allowed to watch television and listen to the radio, but only with headphones so his parents wouldn't hear. She tiptoed around the room. (The suspect) made her memorize which floorboards creaked."
I guess I was incredulous when I first heard the reports. I mean, how can someone be locked in a house for 10 years with three other people without them being aware of it? Wouldn't they hear strange noises or notice food missing? When she got a chance to leave the house 10 months ago, why didn't she run for safety?
But for what it's worth, county police believe her story, and I know that truth is stranger than fiction. I also know that mental abuse --- particularly of a young person --- can be quite damaging.
Someone whose elder, "protector" and ostensible love interest began playing mind games with her --- telling her that she was worthless and forgotten --- would develop a twisted self-image and world view. If the news accounts and police reports are accurate, then it's not surprising that she would have felt powerless to help herself.
In any event, I am happy that this young lady is back home with her family, and that after 10 years, they know that she's still alive and safe. I pray that soon, she'll have her life back on track, and that her emotional scars will heal.
I also hope that the media circus that is going to revolve around this case for at least a few weeks doesn't cause more damage.
Because I have a strong hunch that all of the facts have yet to be revealed, and that this story is likely to become either clearer or stranger in the days and weeks to come. In any case, folks concerned about the city's image (including your humble correspondent) should probably stock up on that Maalox.
News Item:
PITTSBURGH, March 20 --- Two separate power outages at the Mellon Arena combined to delay last night's game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Toronto Maple Leafs for about 45 minutes.
Penguins President and CEO Ken Sawyer said it isn't the first time that power outages have struck the 44-year-old facility. "My first thought was, we need a new arena," he said during a hastily-called press conference.
The crowd of more than 15,000 fans apparently thought the same thing. Many began chanting, "new arena, new arena," during the blackout.
The Penguins took the opportunity to show a video on the "Jumbotron" scoreboard that promotes their plan to build a new arena, if they and a casino operator are awarded the license for a new slot-machine parlor. (Tribune-Review, Post-Gazette)