Thank you for this; I moved to Pittsburgh in late 2006, met my wife within two weeks of moving here, had our one and only child in 2012, and have tons of great memories here.
Well, I was here for the journey, watched how Walmart changed things, for one. Before that though the economy has everything to do with it as well. Controlled by those faceless beings perpetuating their greed on us. Too much now so many broke or barely making it! I guarantee Black Friday sales will be practically nonexistent, with exception of replacement of worn appliances or a few things. This time period is a travesty and we all know why.🙏🏻🤔
I live close to this mall. I went to this mall a lot as a teenager. To see where it’s at and the magic is gone I always get a little watery in my eyes. I remember how filled it was and the memories I had. It’s just sad mall culture is gone my kids will never get to experience going to the mall on a Friday night just to walk around and hang out.
One of the problems of the Mills is that it IS so big. Monroeville's double decker layout makes it quicker to get around. Although the Mills was touted to help the local economy, including New Ken, it is geographically isolated. No one is walking or biking there.
The layout is terrible, a massive oval shape. Takes forever to get from one side to the other. They should have made it two levels like Monroeville. For the most part everything else up there does well around it. They should repurpose it into outlets like grove city.
@@golfgod11 That sprawl makes it great for getting your steps in when the weather's lousy, though. Which is what most people in the mall are doing now. It's weird: very few stores, and the few that are still there have mostly accessed from the parking lot, not inside. But there's still people there, mostly old gomes power-walking around.
C3 was huge too and practically made it to where the building couldn't be taken care of. I miss the comic book and game stores tho. Found unique Godzilla merch and stuff. Miss that.
If I had the money, a large indoor adult "theme park" of sorts with themed areas, drinking, electric scooters to get around, casinos, cigar bar, etc could make it a fun environment. turn a couple storefronts into "hotels" and voila you have a destination, a year round place to go have a good time. Hell a small water park could fit inside the macys alone
As someone who grew up in this mall. It makes me so sad to see how empty everything is. I use to go to with mall with my mom almost every weekend but now I haven't stepped foot inside for a couple of years. I really hope they can rebuild and bring this mall back.
I got transferred out of Pittsburgh for work in 2004, sold my Pittsburgh house in 2005. I remember that there was a lot of buzz about this mall at the time. I had a stroke in 2008 and retired in 2009, ended up buying a house back in "The Burgh" in 2010. This mall was already a failure by the time that I returned. I was stunned at how fast it went down. I stopped there a few years back and it was pretty pitiful, this would have been shortly before Covid hit. The one thing that stands out to me as I watch this video, is how they have kept this property up. It still looks clean and sharp inside.
My mom used to take me there all the time as a kid. I loved it. I live in Center township now, minutes from the Beaver Valley Mall, and I’d say a good 65% of its store fronts are closed. There’s hardly any stores inside of the mall itself. All that’s left are the big stores like JC Penny’s, Dicks, Boscovs and Rural King. There used to be so many cool stores inside. Don’t get me wrong, I love the convenience and possibilities that online shopping brings, but I miss being able to go into a store to look at products and just walk around and shop. I had so many good times in the malls as a teen. It was the place to be on a Friday night in the late 90’s. I met many of my first girlfriends in a mall, and had a lot of dates there as well. The mall, the movies, bowling. That was the weekend destination. There was no sitting at home playing video games on a weekend evening. You called your friends home phone, hoped they were there, and you all met up and had a great time. All you needed was $10 and someone’s mom to give you a ride, and your weekend was going to be awesome.
The deck was stacked against this mall from the start. It opened in the midst of a recession and economic transition to online merchandizing. The location didn't help either as it was too far away from Pittsburgh and the surrounding suburbs. At that time the people in those areas had the Waterworks, Robinson, Ross Park Mall, South Hills Village, Galleria, Monroeville, and Century III as closer options.
That commercial gave me whiplash, I forgot it existed! This opened near where my dad moved to when he moved to the North Hills, but when I would go visit him when I was off work we would go up here with my nephew. I used to hang out in the arcades they had (there was a small one and a really large one) but within a few months one went away and the other got rid of half their cabinets. Within 6 months stores started slowly vacating, you can tell it was an ambitious mall but it was such a far off spot in Tarentum that it was basically the middle of nowhere in Pittsburgh, so it was a hassle to get up there, even if you where close.
I look forward to the day the earth reclaims the mills mall land. We used to ride our dirt-bikes/MTN bikes through that section of land. One day we came up over the hill and earth had been stripped away, it cut off many former routes and was very disappointing to all those that rode. I suppose we rode on what is now the Rachel Carson trail/ and would come out by the Macy's. If you look behind the ALDI we can see the remains.
I was born in 2006 but one fond memory I had as a kid was when my mom would take my brothers and I to the theatre here. This was around 2009-2013 but I remember this being a giant mall. Those weird yellow poles at the entrance always stood out.
This mall was dead the day it opened. I used to work down the road. Awful location. Nobody lives near the mall and nobody wants to traverse rt. 28 at any time.
Based on the map it looks like you have to sit in traffic on the highway to even get there. "People will be willing to travel from 50 miles away". What a bold claim.
@@pucktoad that part of rt 28 is rarely backed up, being well outside of Pittsburgh, but the ramp to the Mills sometimes is. The back road access isn't great either. The waterfront factories in New Ken, along the woods in Harmar... there had to be a better location
It probably could’ve worked outside Cranberry Township, or as an outlet mall. There really aren’t any outlet malls in Pittsburgh outside of Northway, but that’s pretty recent
Mills Mall was one of my first jobs starting in the tile trade. Its horrible to see all the hard work and talent that was put into the building and just watch its demise .... 😢 All those tile floors and store fronts that we took pride in, soon to be all gone. How it survived this long is mind numbing...
Living in this area my whole life it was great having a mall so close by. I worked in the food court from 2010 to 2013. Spent a lot of time hanging out here and sad to see where it is today.
I became fascinated by “dead malls” over a decade ago, when I realized they were a thing (I went to an old mall in the middle of nowhere Ohio, so I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised, lmao) I went to university not too far away from the general Pittsburgh area- and I became so fascinated by this mall… I’ve worked in 2 malls in that general area- and it seemed like our sales were growing, when the mills really started to struggle. I guess it was just not an optimal location 😢
I keep saying half the mall should be converted to a senior living facility. The second half the mall could stay open. The cinema and other stores would provide walking and entertainment. The other store nearby walmart and sams woud help with their groceries. The consent senior living would provde more than enough money to keep it open.
During the Winter months, my family and I walk the mall. It is fun to look at the store fronts for clues of what used to be there. Some are easier than others. When it was being built there were questions of why build such a large mall in that location.
if this was done out in Cranberry, it probably would've done a lot better. Although Cranberry still has a TON of retail and I don't see where a mall would fit in. I think the developers saw Tarentum as the next big suburb of pittsburgh, since it's close to the city and yet still rather rural. That never happened, so now there's just a megamall in the middle of the countryside
Ideas for this place are where it struggles. Make it an entertainment destination and more attraction will follow. Build an indoor water park or something that provides experiences like the go kart track, the endless stores and walking in a circle can only go so far when people in the surrounding neighborhoods don’t have the affordability to do luxury shopping. Provide fun experiences and you’ll attract families
The playground at 12:54 was actually a PBS playground, and is also the most mysterious thing surrounding the PBS brand. No one knows the day that it opened or the day that the playground got the PBS branding strippped away. Nobody knows that much about it.
Good video! Walking through this mall is very surreal as its another multimillion dollar mistake unfortunately. I'm wondering when this mall will eventually go abandoned/vacant.
Wow. Too bad as this is a beautiful mall. And East and great location! Maybe it will turn around?! Thanks for the info. Great older video and pictures of the older days.
I’ve been to this mall a handful of times ranging from 2007 to my latest and final in 2022. Typically it was a meeting ground for friends that lived together near the mills, but altogether a depressing trip.
Another interesting guest they had at the mall was a contestant (or season winner?) from Survivor around the time of the mall's opening or a few years after.
I can honestly say since I live very close to the mall. First of all, the security guards stopped me from recording one time I tried to document how dead the mall is. Secondly, people in my area complained for years that there is nothing around and nothing to do. We get a nice mall and it dies. I made the remark that if the mall sold drugs and had open bars, it'd still be thriving. So now there is nothing again. Great work by the local population and all parties involved.
When the go-kart track and water park didn't happen before it even opened I knew it wouldn't work. There was never any attraction to go to except the movies. I'm surprised Macy's stayed this long. No public transportation to get there either. The surrounding communities are also economically strained even before the mall was built.
This place was such a big deal when I was a kid. My mom took me there to meet Joe Greene and Franco Harris for autographs once. The line was HOURS long. Used to be a gift if my dad took me there to look around on a Sunday afternoon
I used to live down the hill, in Cheswick. The GameStop was a favorite of mine because of all the midnight launches I had been to. Borders used to be my hangout, and AMC was always a treat. It’s quite sad seeing what this place has become. Maybe they should turn it into a paintball arena.
It makes me very sad to see all the closed stores, we were all so excited that we would have a mall so close. A lot of my friends and I think there were too many expensive specialty shops instead of stores we all could afford.
That movie theater was the best one in the area when Cinemark operated it. Cinemark's lease was up for renewal in mid-2020 & they used the pandemic as an excuse to not renew, even though the rumor was they weren't going to renew anyway as far back as fall 2018.
It was such a cool concept for a mall I really liked it when it first opened if you look it up the people that own it now make a living out of running malls into the ground they owned several malls that are failing across the United States
It’s a good mall built at the wrong time. It’s also a two story mall spread out over one sprawling floor. Just saw a movie there last month. Its construction also flushed all the deer out into the surrounding suburbs. They’re everywhere.
I worked there at champs when it first opened for a summer. Nice people to work with and polite customers too, sorry to see it go but I saw its bleak future that first year knowing simply, economically, there simply wasn't enough money to support all of the businesses there.
We a forget this mall was being built durring the wild housing boom of the early 2000's and is was expected to have tons of new housing around this area. Additinaly the mall layout was bad and did allow short cuts across the loop making you walk to whole loop to shop stores it was just too big
Despite being so empty, the Mills isn't run down like you see with other malls. Every time I go there to get my comic books or see a movie or eat at the decent Chinese buffet, I keep thinking the phrase "Exquisite Corpse". That's what the Galleria is to me: an exquisite corpse mall. (The JCPenney's is a Spirit Halloween right now lol)
I'm in northern Butler county. We used to go down here to shop, walk around, get coffee and see a movie. Wow seeing the food court area totally dark is unreal. Obviously I haven't been there for many years now. Once border's, linen n things and other anchors started having their own financial issues, it started going downhill there. I'm not even sure what year that was. 2008?
I remember going in the arcade and playing DDR all the time! I had a blast! It's so sad this mall didn't survive, the inside was beautiful. Ross park is a nice mall but is over an hour away! Not a fan of Monroeville mall since the shooting.
Clearview Mall in Butler. Beaver Valley Mall and this mall are all dead. It's kind of sad to see because of nostalgia but admittedly I don't go to them myself.
South Hills Village is the only mall that is still good. There is a brand new Von Maur Department Store opening there in November to fill the vacant Sears space. And Target and Dick's are doing great in the old Boscov's space.
Yeah although besides a few of the restaurants most stuff at the similarly named Galleria in Mt Lebanon is dead. The model they seem to use is just keep prices sky high on what you sell and then limited business seems enough to keep you afloat. Can't believe that mall is still open. It's been mostly dead for 15(?) Years.
Please do Century III Mall, you can't walk around inside. The construction crews are outside tearing it down, so you could get some nice shots of the construction.
Boy did Dr. Guskey have it figured out back then……grew up in Clearview mall in butler, going to Ross Park was like a trip to a luxury park……the mills is a nice place but i think it struggled due to location, Ross Park still seems to be the prominent place
"Harwick Mills" is more geographically accurate but most people don't know where you're talking about. Took them forever (25 years?) to make this project happen. Never took off.
When the mall opened it had good anchors but the small stores were silly. The only path forward I could see would be an outlet mall or an Amazon distribution center. so sad
This mall was grossly mismanaged from the start. I remember when it opened it was a mile of basically the same clothing store over and over again, with a couple shoe stores, and maybe like 3 niche shops that were worth going to. The initial popularity was all just the novelty effect, but there was never anything there that was worth coming back for. Their leasing costs were astronomical. There was never anything there that would draw people from 50 miles away. It was all big chain stores that you see everywhere.
I used to go here with my ex back in 2009 and on. It was such a nice mall back then.....maybe not as great as they promised but going there is depressing.
I went to this mall very sparingly in the early 2000s with my family around Christmas. But only been back since since they had a card shop. I've stopped going beacuse the card shop was absolutely terrible and incredibly toxic. Now I go to a far superior game store. Plus I think the malls says are numbered.
Build an amusement park indoors just for kids with educational stuff and fun food and games. Paint ball, mini gold and bowling. Need about 20% of the footprint of that mall and you will make millions in profits. Malls are dead now aside of holiday deals. Amazon, Walmart and other huge online retailers are delivering to your home. Why go to a mall?
It’s a shame that some have become dead malls and some still going. Building hotels and some homes/townhomes/apartments in/around would have been a good idea. Yes, there’s Amazon and other home delivery services,however,sometimes the delivery isn’t always within a 2 day framework. I’ve had to wait more than a week. Maybe not everyone has experienced that yet. I do try shopping my local stores. Can’t always find what I’m looking for. Am disappointed in stores that stock limited sizes. It’s either Small and mediums and XXXL, nothing in between - ever. Covid didn’t help. I wish that more kitchen like stores came back into business. A containment store would also be nice.
I wish I lived in PA, especially when the bear was caught between the doors. I'd be that guy who tries to take the bear home and adopt it as my baby lol
The mills was the last mall to be built here. It opened in the 2000s. It was struggling bad from the start. It's in a horrible location with plenty of weird stuff goin on ppl don't know about.
Is this the same developer of Forest Fair? This mall was built late for a mall. It’s sad that it never took off. As an 80’s kid I never thought malls would fail. But Amazon and one stop shop stores like Walmart have killed malls. If I go to a store most merchandise is only available online anyway. Namdar is a slum lord for malls. It looks like the locals in the beginning knew that this mall wasn’t needed from the beginning.
The problem is the demographics of its location and surrounding locations. Was never going to attract top tier clientele with the hicks who reside around the area
how bout the mall the zombie movie was filmed @ over there ? was it this one or another one ? and the zombies n cast wore flannels , you could tell it was filned in western/central pa , lol, lol, we are the only ones that wear them here in the u.s. ! , thanks > tom and i am in altoona pa b.t.w. > tom !
@@jmed412 YES and people /zombies wore flannels , you could tell it was filmed in western pa , lol, lol, we are the only state in the u.s. that wears them , thanks > tom !
@@ScottRPriester bro back in the 70's/80's when this movie was made and known central pa and western pa only wore them , they were not populer anywhere else in the country then , thats what i mean , it was a style bacjk then and still is sorta kinda here i am from altoona pa b.t.w. , you ? , by the sound of it , you a liberal too right ?
They ran it into the ground! They were charging an insane amount for rent inside and then charging stores a % of their sales on top of it. Mafia style bs. I grew up hanging out at this mall and it's no shock at all that it's failed. Even the nicest Movie Theater in the area... absolutely wasted.
That mall was doomed even before it opened. If they would not have allowed Walmart in Sam's club to go in on the property it might have had a chance. Competing with those two big box stores was impossible for it to survive. Also located in that area was at Best buy.
imho they never finished attractions...too many higher budget for our side of pittsburgh stores No bus route for Pittsbyrgh shoppers ..but it was Beautiful...it is so empty they should rent roller skates and make it a rink
I moved to Pittsburgh in 2015. I went to this mall in 2016. It was pretty dead. Ross Park Mall is still very thriving.
Ross Park is probably the best in Pittsburgh. Back in the day, century 3 was the best
@@btrswt35 South hills village is arguably better depending on what stores you like but hard agree if you're north Ross park is where to go.
I remember it really going downhill when Rt 28 was under construction for so long. No one wants to drive 28 as it is, let alone during construction.
That was my first thought when I saw this video. Being off of 28 certainly did not help.
Covid did it also motivate same thing
@@dannydavideos8106 This mall was going under well before covid started.
@@dannydavideos8106 hell no it was a dead mall long before covid
I’m a child of the 1980’s
Malls were booming
It’s sad to see them go
I'm also a child of the 80s. This mall went up when I was in high-school and many questioned the decision to build it at the time.
Thank you for this; I moved to Pittsburgh in late 2006, met my wife within two weeks of moving here, had our one and only child in 2012, and have tons of great memories here.
Unfortunately, we traded the unique mall experince for Amazon packages at our front door.
Well, I was here for the journey, watched how Walmart changed things, for one. Before that though the economy has everything to do with it as well. Controlled by those faceless beings perpetuating their greed on us. Too much now so many broke or barely making it! I guarantee Black Friday sales will be practically nonexistent, with exception of replacement of worn appliances or a few things. This time period is a travesty and we all know why.🙏🏻🤔
I live close to this mall. I went to this mall a lot as a teenager. To see where it’s at and the magic is gone I always get a little watery in my eyes. I remember how filled it was and the memories I had. It’s just sad mall culture is gone my kids will never get to experience going to the mall on a Friday night just to walk around and hang out.
It's always a pleasure, watching your videos on Sunday mornings, while making breakfast for the family. Is that a weird tradition..?😅
One of the problems of the Mills is that it IS so big. Monroeville's double decker layout makes it quicker to get around. Although the Mills was touted to help the local economy, including New Ken, it is geographically isolated. No one is walking or biking there.
The layout is terrible, a massive oval shape. Takes forever to get from one side to the other. They should have made it two levels like Monroeville. For the most part everything else up there does well around it. They should repurpose it into outlets like grove city.
@@golfgod11 That sprawl makes it great for getting your steps in when the weather's lousy, though. Which is what most people in the mall are doing now. It's weird: very few stores, and the few that are still there have mostly accessed from the parking lot, not inside. But there's still people there, mostly old gomes power-walking around.
C3 was huge too and practically made it to where the building couldn't be taken care of. I miss the comic book and game stores tho. Found unique Godzilla merch and stuff. Miss that.
I used to live down the road from here and the best part about it is the huge comic/game store.
As a Pittsburgher, I was WAITING for you to make this as I was going to do the same thing!
I remember my dad talking about all of the wilderness destroyed to build this thing. Such a shame.
If I had the money, a large indoor adult "theme park" of sorts with themed areas, drinking, electric scooters to get around, casinos, cigar bar, etc could make it a fun environment. turn a couple storefronts into "hotels" and voila you have a destination, a year round place to go have a good time. Hell a small water park could fit inside the macys alone
As someone who grew up in this mall. It makes me so sad to see how empty everything is. I use to go to with mall with my mom almost every weekend but now I haven't stepped foot inside for a couple of years. I really hope they can rebuild and bring this mall back.
I got transferred out of Pittsburgh for work in 2004, sold my Pittsburgh house in 2005. I remember that there was a lot of buzz about this mall at the time. I had a stroke in 2008 and retired in 2009, ended up buying a house back in "The Burgh" in 2010. This mall was already a failure by the time that I returned. I was stunned at how fast it went down. I stopped there a few years back and it was pretty pitiful, this would have been shortly before Covid hit. The one thing that stands out to me as I watch this video, is how they have kept this property up. It still looks clean and sharp inside.
One of best mall videos ever produced. ❤❤❤
My mom used to take me there all the time as a kid. I loved it. I live in Center township now, minutes from the Beaver Valley Mall, and I’d say a good 65% of its store fronts are closed. There’s hardly any stores inside of the mall itself. All that’s left are the big stores like JC Penny’s, Dicks, Boscovs and Rural King. There used to be so many cool stores inside. Don’t get me wrong, I love the convenience and possibilities that online shopping brings, but I miss being able to go into a store to look at products and just walk around and shop. I had so many good times in the malls as a teen. It was the place to be on a Friday night in the late 90’s. I met many of my first girlfriends in a mall, and had a lot of dates there as well. The mall, the movies, bowling. That was the weekend destination. There was no sitting at home playing video games on a weekend evening. You called your friends home phone, hoped they were there, and you all met up and had a great time. All you needed was $10 and someone’s mom to give you a ride, and your weekend was going to be awesome.
The deck was stacked against this mall from the start. It opened in the midst of a recession and economic transition to online merchandizing. The location didn't help either as it was too far away from Pittsburgh and the surrounding suburbs. At that time the people in those areas had the Waterworks, Robinson, Ross Park Mall, South Hills Village, Galleria, Monroeville, and Century III as closer options.
That commercial gave me whiplash, I forgot it existed! This opened near where my dad moved to when he moved to the North Hills, but when I would go visit him when I was off work we would go up here with my nephew. I used to hang out in the arcades they had (there was a small one and a really large one) but within a few months one went away and the other got rid of half their cabinets. Within 6 months stores started slowly vacating, you can tell it was an ambitious mall but it was such a far off spot in Tarentum that it was basically the middle of nowhere in Pittsburgh, so it was a hassle to get up there, even if you where close.
The Chinese buffet is basically an anchor tenant
I love that Chinese buffet and the owner is such a nice guy !
Yes, it very much is the underdog and i’d dare say asset to the mall.
I look forward to the day the earth reclaims the mills mall land.
We used to ride our dirt-bikes/MTN bikes through that section of land. One day we came up over the hill and earth had been stripped away, it cut off many former routes and was very disappointing to all those that rode.
I suppose we rode on what is now the Rachel Carson trail/ and would come out by the Macy's. If you look behind the ALDI we can see the remains.
Love the old news clips so sad this mall is so dead wish the water park and hotel would happen
You guy's are the best
my hometown mall! this was me and my friends’ go to in 2015-2017, well after it was already dead
We made the trip once in about 2007. No point to drive that far when we have South Hills Village and Ross Park Mall.
I was born in 2006 but one fond memory I had as a kid was when my mom would take my brothers and I to the theatre here. This was around 2009-2013 but I remember this being a giant mall. Those weird yellow poles at the entrance always stood out.
This mall was dead the day it opened. I used to work down the road. Awful location. Nobody lives near the mall and nobody wants to traverse rt. 28 at any time.
They claimed it would be a boon to New Ken's economy, even though it isn't convenient to travel between the two
Based on the map it looks like you have to sit in traffic on the highway to even get there. "People will be willing to travel from 50 miles away". What a bold claim.
@@pucktoad that part of rt 28 is rarely backed up, being well outside of Pittsburgh, but the ramp to the Mills sometimes is. The back road access isn't great either. The waterfront factories in New Ken, along the woods in Harmar... there had to be a better location
@@behindthewolfseyes If you take the new ken bridge from New Kensington you don't even have to get on 28 to get to the mall.
It probably could’ve worked outside Cranberry Township, or as an outlet mall. There really aren’t any outlet malls in Pittsburgh outside of Northway, but that’s pretty recent
Mills Mall was one of my first jobs starting in the tile trade. Its horrible to see all the hard work and talent that was put into the building and just watch its demise .... 😢
All those tile floors and store fronts that we took pride in, soon to be all gone. How it survived this long is mind numbing...
Living in this area my whole life it was great having a mall so close by. I worked in the food court from 2010 to 2013. Spent a lot of time hanging out here and sad to see where it is today.
I became fascinated by “dead malls” over a decade ago, when I realized they were a thing (I went to an old mall in the middle of nowhere Ohio, so I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised, lmao)
I went to university not too far away from the general Pittsburgh area- and I became so fascinated by this mall…
I’ve worked in 2 malls in that general area- and it seemed like our sales were growing, when the mills really started to struggle.
I guess it was just not an optimal location 😢
i love your channel so much
I keep saying half the mall should be converted to a senior living facility. The second half the mall could stay open. The cinema and other stores would provide walking and entertainment. The other store nearby walmart and sams woud help with their groceries. The consent senior living would provde more than enough money to keep it open.
I just was at the mall near me, and they were fairly busy.
It’s just strange how some malls survive and others die on the vine.
During the Winter months, my family and I walk the mall. It is fun to look at the store fronts for clues of what used to be there. Some are easier than others.
When it was being built there were questions of why build such a large mall in that location.
if this was done out in Cranberry, it probably would've done a lot better. Although Cranberry still has a TON of retail and I don't see where a mall would fit in. I think the developers saw Tarentum as the next big suburb of pittsburgh, since it's close to the city and yet still rather rural. That never happened, so now there's just a megamall in the middle of the countryside
Was a good place in the beginning. Used to go to Sears Grand all the time.
And i thank youvfot that...greetsz from friesland...max 😊
TJ’s Chinese buffet is in the Pittsburgh mills mall , It’s a great buffet and the owner is such a nice guy !
The parking lots around the mall are in awful shape. Even around the restaurants that do good business.
Ideas for this place are where it struggles. Make it an entertainment destination and more attraction will follow. Build an indoor water park or something that provides experiences like the go kart track, the endless stores and walking in a circle can only go so far when people in the surrounding neighborhoods don’t have the affordability to do luxury shopping. Provide fun experiences and you’ll attract families
The playground at 12:54 was actually a PBS playground, and is also the most mysterious thing surrounding the PBS brand. No one knows the day that it opened or the day that the playground got the PBS branding strippped away. Nobody knows that much about it.
Good video! Walking through this mall is very surreal as its another multimillion dollar mistake unfortunately. I'm wondering when this mall will eventually go abandoned/vacant.
Funny seeing my local mall in a dead mall vid
I still go there, but rarely enter the mall proper. There are some great standalones including Walmart, Sams, EatnPark, Lowes, and Ollies.
Wow. Too bad as this is a beautiful mall. And East and great location! Maybe it will turn around?! Thanks for the info. Great older video and pictures of the older days.
I’ve been to this mall a handful of times ranging from 2007 to my latest and final in 2022. Typically it was a meeting ground for friends that lived together near the mills, but altogether a depressing trip.
It's a shame because it really is beautiful inside.
Another interesting guest they had at the mall was a contestant (or season winner?) from Survivor around the time of the mall's opening or a few years after.
The indoor playgrounds are great for little kids in the wintertime. Kids can run around and play and there's no one around
I can honestly say since I live very close to the mall. First of all, the security guards stopped me from recording one time I tried to document how dead the mall is. Secondly, people in my area complained for years that there is nothing around and nothing to do. We get a nice mall and it dies. I made the remark that if the mall sold drugs and had open bars, it'd still be thriving. So now there is nothing again. Great work by the local population and all parties involved.
I remember when I was a child going to this Mall the first time with my parents. It's a shame over the years that it went downhill.
When the go-kart track and water park didn't happen before it even opened I knew it wouldn't work. There was never any attraction to go to except the movies. I'm surprised Macy's stayed this long. No public transportation to get there either. The surrounding communities are also economically strained even before the mall was built.
This place was such a big deal when I was a kid. My mom took me there to meet Joe Greene and Franco Harris for autographs once. The line was HOURS long. Used to be a gift if my dad took me there to look around on a Sunday afternoon
I used to live down the hill, in Cheswick. The GameStop was a favorite of mine because of all the midnight launches I had been to. Borders used to be my hangout, and AMC was always a treat. It’s quite sad seeing what this place has become. Maybe they should turn it into a paintball arena.
Make it an Outlet Mall, I would go there instead of Grove City Outlets.
It makes me very sad to see all the closed stores, we were all so excited that we would have a mall so close. A lot of my friends and I think there were too many expensive specialty shops instead of stores we all could afford.
That movie theater was the best one in the area when Cinemark operated it. Cinemark's lease was up for renewal in mid-2020 & they used the pandemic as an excuse to not renew, even though the rumor was they weren't going to renew anyway as far back as fall 2018.
It was such a cool concept for a mall I really liked it when it first opened if you look it up the people that own it now make a living out of running malls into the ground they owned several malls that are failing across the United States
It’s a good mall built at the wrong time. It’s also a two story mall spread out over one sprawling floor. Just saw a movie there last month. Its construction also flushed all the deer out into the surrounding suburbs. They’re everywhere.
I worked there at champs when it first opened for a summer. Nice people to work with and polite customers too, sorry to see it go but I saw its bleak future that first year knowing simply, economically, there simply wasn't enough money to support all of the businesses there.
We a forget this mall was being built durring the wild housing boom of the early 2000's and is was expected to have tons of new housing around this area. Additinaly the mall layout was bad and did allow short cuts across the loop making you walk to whole loop to shop stores it was just too big
Counted about 40 vacancies in this mall when I walked through it in the fall of 2008. I'd say about half of those had never had an occupant.
Despite being so empty, the Mills isn't run down like you see with other malls. Every time I go there to get my comic books or see a movie or eat at the decent Chinese buffet, I keep thinking the phrase "Exquisite Corpse". That's what the Galleria is to me: an exquisite corpse mall.
(The JCPenney's is a Spirit Halloween right now lol)
I'm in northern Butler county. We used to go down here to shop, walk around, get coffee and see a movie. Wow seeing the food court area totally dark is unreal. Obviously I haven't been there for many years now. Once border's, linen n things and other anchors started having their own financial issues, it started going downhill there. I'm not even sure what year that was. 2008?
I remember going in the arcade and playing DDR all the time! I had a blast! It's so sad this mall didn't survive, the inside was beautiful. Ross park is a nice mall but is over an hour away! Not a fan of Monroeville mall since the shooting.
Clearview Mall in Butler. Beaver Valley Mall and this mall are all dead. It's kind of sad to see because of nostalgia but admittedly I don't go to them myself.
South Hills Village is the only mall that is still good. There is a brand new Von Maur Department Store opening there in November to fill the vacant Sears space. And Target and Dick's are doing great in the old Boscov's space.
Ross Park Mall is hanging in there to
Well yeah. The T goes there. Woooorlds more accessible than driving out 28.
Yeah although besides a few of the restaurants most stuff at the similarly named Galleria in Mt Lebanon is dead. The model they seem to use is just keep prices sky high on what you sell and then limited business seems enough to keep you afloat. Can't believe that mall is still open. It's been mostly dead for 15(?) Years.
Oh i remember that bear also being at the mall it was hanging around locals backyards mine included.
Out of curiosity, do you know the occupancy rate at the Beaver Valley Mall?
Please do Century III Mall, you can't walk around inside. The construction crews are outside tearing it down, so you could get some nice shots of the construction.
Boy did Dr. Guskey have it figured out back then……grew up in Clearview mall in butler, going to Ross Park was like a trip to a luxury park……the mills is a nice place but i think it struggled due to location, Ross Park still seems to be the prominent place
"Harwick Mills" is more geographically accurate but most people don't know where you're talking about. Took them forever (25 years?) to make this project happen. Never took off.
lol here everyday
When the mall opened it had good anchors but the small stores were silly. The only path forward I could see would be an outlet mall or an Amazon distribution center. so sad
Butt crack at 16:55
he even lowered the camera to make sure you see it lol
My goodness, I was there back around 2010 and it was empty! And it's still like that?!
This mall was grossly mismanaged from the start. I remember when it opened it was a mile of basically the same clothing store over and over again, with a couple shoe stores, and maybe like 3 niche shops that were worth going to. The initial popularity was all just the novelty effect, but there was never anything there that was worth coming back for. Their leasing costs were astronomical. There was never anything there that would draw people from 50 miles away. It was all big chain stores that you see everywhere.
I used to go here with my ex back in 2009 and on. It was such a nice mall back then.....maybe not as great as they promised but going there is depressing.
I went to this mall very sparingly in the early 2000s with my family around Christmas. But only been back since since they had a card shop. I've stopped going beacuse the card shop was absolutely terrible and incredibly toxic. Now I go to a far superior game store. Plus I think the malls says are numbered.
Love going here for my macbid crap
Build an amusement park indoors just for kids with educational stuff and fun food and games. Paint ball, mini gold and bowling. Need about 20% of the footprint of that mall and you will make millions in profits. Malls are dead now aside of holiday deals. Amazon, Walmart and other huge online retailers are delivering to your home. Why go to a mall?
They had all of that stuff at one point. It didn't survive. Chuck E cheese can't even keep their doors open.
It’s a shame that some have become dead malls and some still going. Building hotels and some homes/townhomes/apartments in/around would have been a good idea. Yes, there’s Amazon and other home delivery services,however,sometimes the delivery isn’t always within a 2 day framework. I’ve had to wait more than a week. Maybe not everyone has experienced that yet. I do try shopping my local stores. Can’t always find what I’m looking for. Am disappointed in stores that stock limited sizes. It’s either Small and mediums and XXXL, nothing in between - ever.
Covid didn’t help.
I wish that more kitchen like stores came back into business. A containment store would also be nice.
I'm 36. The malls going was deff weird to witness and still is.
I wish I lived in PA, especially when the bear was caught between the doors. I'd be that guy who tries to take the bear home and adopt it as my baby lol
If they'd had built a waterfront mall along the river in new ken, we would have a totally different city
When Spirit Halloween moves into your area, you know things are dying/dead.
I remember the inside glow in the dark putt putt
Im amazed its still open at all. It's been pathetic for at least a decade
They knew this was going to happen. All the other malls in the area were dying as this one was being built.
The mills was the last mall to be built here. It opened in the 2000s. It was struggling bad from the start. It's in a horrible location with plenty of weird stuff goin on ppl don't know about.
Surprised ey didn’t put it dahntahn ‘nat.
Lol who are you sneaking up on at 3:58?
it was a nice mallin the 80s but it got cloudy there and went under
Is this the same developer of Forest Fair? This mall was built late for a mall. It’s sad that it never took off. As an 80’s kid I never thought malls would fail. But Amazon and one stop shop stores like Walmart have killed malls. If I go to a store most merchandise is only available online anyway. Namdar is a slum lord for malls. It looks like the locals in the beginning knew that this mall wasn’t needed from the beginning.
This is the same developer that converted Forest Fair into Cincinnati Mills in 2004. Guess it's now abandoned.
The problem is the demographics of its location and surrounding locations. Was never going to attract top tier clientele with the hicks who reside around the area
how bout the mall the zombie movie was filmed @ over there ? was it this one or another one ? and the zombies n cast wore flannels , you could tell it was filned in western/central pa , lol, lol, we are the only ones that wear them here in the u.s. ! , thanks > tom and i am in altoona pa b.t.w. > tom !
Monroeville mall was the filming location of Dawn of the Dead.
@@jmed412 YES and people /zombies wore flannels , you could tell it was filmed in western pa , lol, lol, we are the only state in the u.s. that wears them , thanks > tom !
Pittsburgh is not the only place in the United States that wear flannels, what a dumb thing to say
@@ScottRPriester bro back in the 70's/80's when this movie was made and known central pa and western pa only wore them , they were not populer anywhere else in the country then , thats what i mean , it was a style bacjk then and still is sorta kinda here i am from altoona pa b.t.w. , you ? , by the sound of it , you a liberal too right ?
Born and raised In Erie, have lived in Pittsburgh for nearly 18 years. What's with the liberal comment?
Good mall, go when i can, their only problem was not having a zombie 🧟♂️ 🧟♀️ movie filmed there
They ran it into the ground! They were charging an insane amount for rent inside and then charging stores a % of their sales on top of it. Mafia style bs. I grew up hanging out at this mall and it's no shock at all that it's failed. Even the nicest Movie Theater in the area... absolutely wasted.
That mall was doomed even before it opened. If they would not have allowed Walmart in Sam's club to go in on the property it might have had a chance. Competing with those two big box stores was impossible for it to survive. Also located in that area was at Best buy.
Put a mini casino in the mills mall problem solved
imho they never finished attractions...too many higher budget for our side of pittsburgh stores No bus route for Pittsbyrgh shoppers ..but it was Beautiful...it is so empty they should rent roller skates and make it a rink
Monroeville and Pittsburgh mills are both done