Ross Park Mall Finds Tenant For Former Sears Location

ROSS TOWNSHIP, PA — The long-vacant Ross Park Mall Sears space will soon house a Dick's House of Sport store. Company officials confirmed the opening of the fledgling chain in Pittsburgh during an earnings call this week.

There currently are three House of Sport stores in the Dick's chain, in Rochester, Knoxville and Minntonka, Minnesota. The stores are interactive, with spaces for attractions such as golf simulators, batting cages, a climbing wall; they also will offer services such as racquet stringing and baseball glove steaming.

Over the next two years, Dick's plans to open about 2o new locations, including the Ross Park Mall one. Pittsburgh-based Dick's CEO Lauren Hobart predicted as many as 100 Houses of Sports could open in the next five years.

"Dick's House of Sport is redefining sports retail," Dick's CEO Lauren Hobart said this week in a company earnings call."House of Sport is an experience that fosters deep community involvement, goes well beyond traditional retail and has become a destination where athletes can fuel their passions."

House of Sport is supposed to open next year. It's unclear what will happen to the existing Dick's location at the nearby McCandless Dick's location.

Sears closed at the mall five years ago. Simon Properties, which owns the mall, promised a massive redevelopment of the vacated store but those plans never got off the ground due to the COVID-19 pandemic.