Beaver Valley Mall

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Beaver Valley Mall
Facts and statistics
Location Monaca, Pennsylvania
Opening date 1970
Management Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust
Owner Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust
No. of stores and services over 100
No. of anchor tenants 5
No. of floors 1 (anchor stores are two levels)
Website ShopBeaverValley.com

Beaver Valley Mall opened in 1970 as a regional shopping mall, located in Monaca, Pennsylvania. Its anchors are Boscov's, Dick's Sporting Goods, JCPenney, Macy's, Sears and offers over 100 stores and a food court.

Contents

[edit] Chi-Chi's/Hepatitis A outbreak

Beaver Valley Mall was the scene of the largest hepatitis A outbreak in U.S. history, when 660 people contracted the virus and 4 people died after eating at the defunct Chi-Chi's Mexican restaurant during the months of October and November in 2003. After a long investigation, it was discovered that Green onions imported from Mexico were the cause of the outbreak.[1] Business at the mall had dropped considerably after the outbreak, but has since returned to normal numbers with the help of new tenants and more development in Center Township.[citation needed] The outbreak did not affect restaurants that were near the mall but not actually at the mall, but did affect the foodcourt tennants for a period of time.

Chi-Chi's, as a business, has since gone out of business and its location in the mall had been taken by another Mexican restaurant called "The Three Amigos," but that closed as well and as of January 28, 2008, the area stands vacant. Part of the old restaurant site has since been used to build Dick's Sporting Goods.

[edit] Anchors & Majors Retailers

[edit] Former anchors

In 1970, the Beaver Valley Mall opened with The Joseph Horne Company, Gimbels, and Sears 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 Beaver Valley 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 Beaver Valley location was closed and completely renovated before reopening as Kaufmann's. After the move to the mall, the original Kaufmann's location in Rochester was subdivided into a Giant Eagle and a K-Mart. In 2006, when The May Department Stores Company was purchased by Cincinnati based Federated Department Stores, this location was renamed Macy's.

The Joseph Horne Company (owned by the New York City based Associated Dry Goods Corporation) operated in the Beaver Valley 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 1998, after operating a few years as Lazarus, Federated closed several locations including the Beaver Valley Mall store. This location was then acquired by and reopened as Boscov's.

J.C. Penney became the fourth anchor in 1998, with the new location being built right in front of the food court. J.C. Penney had moved out there from the Northern Lights Shopping Center in nearby Baden due to southern Beaver County being depressed as opposed to booming Center Township, which at the time was just starting to develop and has since exploded with continuing development, almost in the same manner as other nearby areas such as Robinson Township, Cranberry Township, and the Boardman/Poland, Ohio area just south of Youngstown.

Dick's Sporting Goods became the fifth anchor in 2007. The store was built in between J.C. Penney and Boscov's. As mentioned before, the store used parts of the old Chi-Chi's site after the chain's aforementioned hepatitis outbreak. Unlike Kaufmann's and J.C. Penney, Dick's opened a brand new location at the mall as opposed to moving an existing location.

[edit] Food Court Stores

  • Antony's Pizza
  • Subway
  • Panda Express
  • Charley's Steakery
  • Tasty Toast
  • Humphery's Saloon & Eatery

[edit] Businesses located just outside the mall in the parking lot

[edit] Other nearby businesses

[edit] References

[edit] External links