The Beaver Valley Mall is a regional

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

located in Center Township, Pennsylvania, serving Beaver County within the

Pittsburgh metropolitan area Greater Pittsburgh is a populous region centered around its largest city and economic hub, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The region encompasses Pittsburgh's urban core county, Allegheny, and six adjacent Pennsylvania counties: Armstrong, Beaver, ...

. It is owned by the

Namdar Realty Group Namdar Realty Group is an American shopping mall investment company based in Great Neck, New York. They primarily purchase shopping malls with partner Mason Asset Management. Namdar and Mason are both family owned, and as of 2021, own over 400 p ...

. Its anchors are

Boscov's Boscov's Inc. is a family-owned department store with forty-nine locations in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Twenty-six of these stores are located in Pennsylvania. Corporate headqu ...

, Dick's Sporting Goods,

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...

, and

Rural King Rural King Supply is a farm supply store based in Mattoon, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1960, it now has 135 stores in the U.S. states of Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylva ...

. The mall offers more than 35 stores and services, and also contains a

U-Haul U-Haul is an American moving truck, trailer, and self-storage rental company, based in Phoenix, Arizona, that has been in operation since 1945. The company was founded by Leonard Shoen in Ridgefield, Washington, who began it in the garage ...

storage center.

History

In 1970, the Beaver Valley Mall opened with The Joseph Horne Company,

Gimbels Gimbel Brothers (known simply as Gimbels) was an American department store corporation that operated for over a century, from 1842 until 1987. Gimbel patriarch Adam Gimbel opened his first store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. In 1887, the compa ...

, and

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

as the original anchors. That same year, the entire Gimbels chain was purchased by the tobacco conglomerate BATUS. In 1986, after years of declining sales, BATUS announced that Gimbels was on the block. Unable to find a buyer for the entire chain, BATUS closed down the entire Gimbels

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

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 St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

based

May Department Stores Company The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many ...

for its Pittsburgh-based

Kaufmann's Kaufmann's was a department store that originated in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Summary The store was owned in the early 20th century by Edgar J. Kaufmann, patron of the famous Fallingwater house. In the post-war years, the store became a regi ...

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 nearby

Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...

was subdivided into a

Giant Eagle Giant Eagle, Inc. (Western Pennsylvania English: ) and stylized as giant eagle) is an American supermarket chain with stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, and Maryland. The company was founded in 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylv ...

and a

Kmart Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was inc ...

. In 2006, when

The May Department Stores Company The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many ch ...

was purchased by

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

based

Federated Department Stores Macy's, Inc. (originally Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American conglomerate holding company. Upon its establishment, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus, Filene's, and Shillito ...

, this location was renamed

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

. The Joseph Horne Company (owned by the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

based Associated Dry Goods Corporation) operated in the Beaver Valley Mall until 1995. In October 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 In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

nameplate A nameplate identifies and displays a person or product's name. Nameplates are usually shaped as rectangles but are also seen in other shapes, sometimes taking on the shape of someone's written name. Nameplates primarily serve an informat ...

. 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

became the fourth anchor in 1998, with the new location being built right in front of the food court. JCPenney had moved out there from the

Northern Lights Shopping Center Northern Lights Shopping Center is a strip mall located in Economy, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. It was a major power center-style strip mall from its opening until the early 2000's. A Walmart opened on the adjacent lot to Northern Lights in 2014 ...

in nearby

Economy An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

due to Beaver County being depressed, and frequent flooding that would not be addressed by the property owner. Dick's Sporting Goods became the fifth anchor in 2007. The store was built in between JCPenney and Boscov's. In June 2016, the

store at Beaver Valley Mall closed.

Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that invests in shopping centers mostly in the Mid-Atlantic states. History The company was founded by Sylvan M. Cohen in 1960 as one of the first equi ...

sold the mall to

in January 2017. Macy's closed on March 26, 2017. In December 2017,

announced they would become the new anchor store, taking the place of the former Sears. On March 25, 2018, Rural King held a grand opening for its Beaver Valley Mall store.

purchased the former Macy's location in January 2018, and now operates the new storage and showroom within the former location. On June 4, 2020, it was announced that JCPenney would be closing its doors as part of a plan to close 154 stores nationwide following their

Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...

protection filing in May 2020. On July 9, 2020, however, it was announced that this store had been removed from their store closing list, and would be staying open.

Current Anchors

(Former Lazarus/

Joseph Horne Company The Joseph Horne Company, often referred to simply as Joseph Horne's or Horne's, was an iconic, regional department store chain based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The store was one of the oldest in the country being founded on February 22, 1849, ...

) * Dick's Sporting Goods *

(Former

) *

(Former

)

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 four people died after eating at the

Chi-Chi's Chi-Chi's can either refer to a Mexican food restaurant chain founded in the United States in 1975, which continued in Europe only (as a Tex-Mex restaurant, under different ownership) after the North American owner declared bankruptcy and fol ...

Mexican restaurant during the months of October and November in 2003. After a long investigation, it was discovered that scallions imported from

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

were the cause of the outbreak. The outbreak did not affect restaurants that were not connected to the main mall, but did affect the food court tenants for a period of time as well as putting all of

locations out of business.

References

External links

Beaver Valley Mall
{{coord, 40.6747, -80.3140, region:US-PA_type:landmark, display=title Shopping malls in Metro Pittsburgh Shopping malls established in 1970 Buildings and structures in Beaver County, Pennsylvania Tourist attractions in Beaver County, Pennsylvania Namdar Realty Group