Wal-Mart ditches plan to build store in East Hills Shopping Center

Wal-Mart ditches plan to build store in East Hills Shopping Center


By Tony LaRussa
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, March 18, 2010

Buzz up!


A decision by Lowe's not to open a store in the former East Hills Shopping Center prompted Wal-Mart officials to scrap their plans for a store there, a company spokesman said Wednesday.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer announced in 2007 that it wanted to build a nearly 150,000-square-foot store on 44 acres in the vacant shopping center that straddles Penn Hills, Wilkinsburg and Pittsburgh.

"We fully understand that residents want to shop and work at our stores, but we have to measure that against our responsibility to build and manage financially sound stores," said Steven Restivo, a Wal-Mart spokesman.

Moorsville, N.C.-based Lowe's outlined its reasons for pulling out in an e-mail:

"A number of factors required us to re-evaluate our plans, and Lowe's has decided not to move forward with store development in Penn Hills," said company spokeswoman Maureen Rich.

The Wal-Mart store was expected to create 300 to 400 jobs, followed by several hundred more jobs once Lowe's and other retail shops and restaurants opened.

It also was part of Wal-Mart's nationwide "Jobs and Opportunity Zone," designed to revitalize urban neighborhoods in nine cities. Locally, it included a promise to spend thousands of dollars to help businesses, chambers of commerce and other groups compete with the retail giant.

Restivo said Wal-Mart will honor about $103,000 in commitments it made to local organizations such as the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County, which promotes economic development.

Penn Hills Planning Director Howard Davidson said the municipality was ready for the construction to proceed.

"We were at the point where all they had to do was come in and request a building permit to break ground," he said. "Obviously, it's a disappointment that it won't materialize."

Another Wal-Mart proposed in 2005 along Saltsburg Road on the Penn Hills-Plum border has been delayed because of traffic concerns, Davidson said, but it should still be built

I believe there was a window of opportunity to land the project, but actions or inactions by our local government, caused the window to close. I sat through several meetings where the representitives of Lowes and Walmart stood before council and were treated poorly. I even testified a couple times and urged Mayor and council to close the deal before it was too late. It appears that throwing up the roadblocks time and time again gave Lowes and Walmart time to think about it and they backed out.

Now I understand that different groups of people do not like walmart. Unions hate them, local businesses hate them, liberal democrats hate them etc. And some of these groups may have influenced local government.

But this was a good project that would clean up a brownfield and put economic benefits into a depressed area. The walmart on the saltsburg site will destroy greenspace and is not wanted by the locals. The Eastgate was the one Penn Hills needed. Lack of vision by local government killed a good project.

Mr.Ed I was wondering if that was the reason. That is unbelievable, I noticed in the papers the reason why Lowes pulled out wasn't stated in details, ........ do you think this will be brought up at the next Municipality meeting??