In 2005, when Walmart wanted to open a store in Monroeville, a municipality in western Pennsylvania of about 30,000 people, residents rallied to keep it out, citing worries about traffic, crime and the environment.
It is a story that has played out many times for the world’s largest retailer.
Over the years, major cities like New York and San Francisco, along with smaller places like Inglewood in Los Angeles County, have kept Walmart out. Critics accused the retailer of underinvesting in security and pushing costs like employee health care onto communities, in addition to drawing traffic, paving over green space and undercutting local businesses.
But what makes this story different is that Walmart has found its way back to Monroeville 20 years later. Instead of building a new store, though, the retailer bought an operating mall with 120 tenants for $34 million.
Walmart hasn’t said much publicly about its plans for Monroeville Mall. Rick Murray, owner of SpectroDolce Confectionery on the mall’s second floor, said, “The entire community has no idea what’s going on.” And his sales have dropped “drastically” since the news came out that Walmart bought the mall because, he said, people assume the mall has already closed. Mr. Murray is worried he will have to lay off his employees.
A spokesman for Walmart, Mark Rickel, said in an email only that the retailer “is very interested in being part of any future redevelopment of this site,” a statement the company has been circulating for months.
David Wang, owner of Hibachi Steakhouse & Sushi Bar at the mall, told The New York Times that he was part of a small group of tenants holding longer leases who met in July with a representative of Cypress Equities, Walmart’s partner on the project. They were told that they had until the end of April 2027 to vacate so the mall could be demolished and turned into an open-air shopping center with a Walmart, a Sam’s Club, a skating rink, shops and restaurants.
Mr. Wang, a tenant since 2014, said the developers had offered to suspend rent for anyone who agreed to vacate early, but by his calculation a rent abatement would amount to about $300,000. To rebuild and relocate, he estimates, he’ll need $1.5 million to $2 million. He has hired a lawyer.
The new site may also include walking paths and an amphitheater, according to a preliminary rendering that a former council member, Lois Drumheller, said she saw when she met with a representative of Cypress. Cypress did not respond to requests for comment.
Walmart’s plans for Monroeville seem to be its first foray into a real estate strategy it publicized in 2018, when it said it would build town centers by turning some of its parking lots into green and common areas and adding local businesses, said Brandon Svec, national director of U.S. retail analytics at CoStar Group, a real estate data and analytics firm.
Walmart owns most of its store sites, but its new purchase makes it a landlord to other merchants, too. If the Monroeville project goes well, it could serve as a template for a new way for Walmart and other large players to grow. A multiuse center could open new revenue streams from housing, child and pet care facilities, health centers, and recreational spaces like bowling alleys and movie theaters — businesses that Walmart said in 2018 it could include on its sites.
Walmart knows the area and the shoppers, Mr. Svec said — there is a Sam’s Club in Monroeville. “They’ve realized, ‘There is a substantial consumer base that we could serve directly from this area.’”
Turning an existing building into a multiuse center also gives Walmart and others a way into denser areas where unused land isn’t typically available for constructing sprawling stores. (Walmart’s Supercenters are on average 178,000 square feet.)
Walmart isn’t the only new major player in real estate with plans to change how cities and downtowns look. Professional sports teams have also tapped into the promise of building mixed-use developments to boost their brands and revenue.
Soon after buying the Monroeville Mall, Walmart acquired an operating shopping center in the nearby town of Bethel Park for $39.6 million that includes a Walmart store and a Giant Eagle supermarket.
Monroeville’s businesses and some residents are rattled by the unknowns behind the plan, but many also acknowledge that the area needs help rebuilding. In the past 50 years, the county’s population has slid to about 1.2 million from 1.5 million, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The town, with a median household income of about $78,000, once housed large research operations for U.S. Steel and Westinghouse, said Alex Graziani, the municipal manager. Officials hope that Monroeville’s purchase of a nearby convention center last year, along with Walmart’s redevelopment, will help make it a retail and entertainment draw, Mr. Graziani said.
Brandon Markosek, who serves in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and on the board of Monroeville’s chamber of commerce and visitors’ bureau, applauded Walmart’s efforts.
“We’ve seen malls in the region really go on the decline, so to have a large investment come into the eastern suburbs of Allegheny County is crucial for our economic development,” Mr. Markosek said. Century III Mall, once a popular destination in the county and one of the largest in the nation when it opened in 1979, closed 40 years later and is being demolished.
On a Tuesday this summer, most visitors at the sparsely populated Monroeville Mall were there to walk, not shop. Several noted the declining traffic and the drumbeat of closings over the years. One woman visiting the fast-fashion store H&M said she had stopped going to the mall regularly after a shooting.
The mall, which opened in 1969, once drew visitors from around the region with attractions like a skating rink and comedy club, said Jim Lomeo, who was mayor of the town in 2005 and opposed Walmart’s having a presence then. Eventually, the mall was eclipsed by newer centers and online shopping. A fatal shooting in 2020 and a stabbing in 2022 kept more shoppers away.
“I was never anti-Walmart or pro-Walmart,” Mr. Lomeo said. But he said he thought the retailer’s proposed site in 2005 on the edge of town would be too much of a burden for a low-density area. The current project, he said, has potential because of its central location and ability to accommodate more traffic. “The bones are there,” Mr. Lomeo said.
Elisa Beth Haransky-Beck, an optometrist and the founder of Sustainable Monroeville, which promotes regenerative practices and development, said she had urged Cypress in a recent virtual meeting to grow vegetables on the new building’s roof for local food pantries and include a permeable pavement.
“This could be a golden opportunity for us,” Dr. Haransky-Beck said. “We’re asking them to take a quantum leap. We’re holding them accountable for what they can do.”
Others, like Mr. Markosek and Mr. Graziani, said they were also hoping Walmart would incorporate more green spaces and walking trails into its development.
Mr. Graziani, who has spoken with Cypress about the project and attended the meeting with Mrs. Drumheller, said Walmart seemed open to a central, walkable commercial district.
Mr. Markosek also said he wanted to make sure there was a place for the local merchants in the new shopping center.
One of those merchants, Mr. Murray of SpectroDolce Confectionery, said in an interview that Walmart’s plans “very well could be an amazing thing.”
“I could be selling this idea for them and improving community perception at a time when, frankly, they could really use it,” he added.
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