Washington Crown Center
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| Location | Washington, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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| Coordinates | 40°9′35.7″N 80°16′33.9″W / 40.159917°N 80.276083°W |
| Address | 1500 West Chestnut Street Washington, PA 15301 |
| Opening date | 1969[1] |
| Developer | Crown American |
| Management | Kohan Retail Investment Group |
| Owner | Kohan Retail Investment Group |
| No. of stores and services | 54+ [2] |
| No. of anchor tenants | 5 (2 vacant) |
| Total retail floor area | 676,136 square feet (63,000 m2)[1] |
| No. of floors | 1 |
| Public transit access |  Freedom Transit bus: Local B, Local Saturday |
| Website | shopwashingtoncrown |
Washington Crown Center (formerly Franklin Mall) is a 676,000 square-foot regional enclosed shopping mall in North Franklin Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, just outside the city of Washington and south of Pittsburgh. The mall is anchored by Sears, Regal Cinemas (formerly Hollywood Theaters), and Rural King with junior anchors Marshalls, Ross Dress for Less, Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts and ULTA Beauty.
History
The mall opened in 1969 as Franklin Mall, with Troutman's, Sears and Grant City (which became Hills in 1976) as its anchors.[3] An Acme supermarket was also located in the mall parking lot just past Grant's/Hills. It closed in 1977. Troutman's closed in 1984 and was sold to Pomeroy's,[4] which in turn converted to The Bon-Ton in 1987. A 1985 expansion to the mall added Hess's and a new Hills, while converting the original Hills location to a food court and additional retail space.[5]
In 1999, the mall was renamed Washington Crown Center and underwent a renovation.[6] Among the changes were the addition of a movie theater on the site of the former Hess's, which closed four years prior;[7] the conversion of Hills to Ames,[8] and the addition of Kaufmann's as a fourth anchor.[9] The Ames store closed in 2002 and became Gander Mountain in 2003,[10] while Kaufmann's was converted to Macy's in 2006. In 2013, Marshalls replaced Old Navy. In 2014, Ross Dress for Less took 25,000 square feet of former specialty retail shop space. The trend of replacing small shops with big box stores continued through 2014 with the addition of Jo-Ann Fabrics, Ulta and Books-a-Million. In January 2015, PREIT announced that it was planning on selling Washington Crown Center along with four other malls.[11]
In August 2016, PREIT sold the Mall for $20 million. It was reported that the occupancy had dropped to 87.4% before the sale and had represented a drop in performance.[12]
Both Macy's and Gander Mountain closed in 2017. The Bon-Ton closed on August 29, 2018 as part of that chain's liquidation.
References
- ^ a b "Washingtion Crown Center Fact Sheet" (PDF). PREIT. Retrieved May 2, 2011.
- ^ "Washington Crown Center Directory". Retrieved March 12, 2017.
- ^ Observer-Reporter - Google News Archive Search
- ^ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Google News Archive Search
- ^ The Pittsburgh Press - Google News Archive Search
- ^ Observer-Reporter - Google News Archive Search
- ^ Observer-Reporter - Google News Archive Search
- ^ Observer-Reporter - Google News Archive Search
- ^ Observer-Reporter - Google News Archive Search
- ^ Observer-Reporter
- ^ Kraus, Scott (January 5, 2015). "For sale: Palmer Park Mall". The Morning Call. Allentown, PA. Retrieved January 10, 2015.
- ^ "PREIT Continues Portfolio Reshaping Effort - CoStar Group". www.costar.com. Retrieved 2016-08-28.