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.

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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.