Former Pittsburgh Mall Property To Become Amazon Center

NORTH VERSAILLES, PA — Amazon has completed its purchase of the former Eastland Mall site and will build a distribution center on the property.

In December, North Versailles commissioners gave approval to Trammell Crow Company to build a 141,386 square-foot warehouse on the long-dormant property. The developer declined to identify the company moving into the building but deed transfer records show that Amazon has purchased the 46-acre site, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported this week.

The property currently is valued at $690,000, according to Allegheny County property assessment records.

Opening in 1963, Eastland was built by the Gimbels department store chain and housed retailers such as J.C. Penney, Woolworth's, National Record Mart and Thom McAn shoes. The mall gradually went into decline as competing malls such as Century III (now vacant itself) and South Hills Village sprung up around the region.

The mall already was in bankruptcy in 1986 when Gimbels went out of business, a devastating blow for the complex. Benderson Development Co. of Buffalo, NY bought the site in 1988 for $1.2 million; a Benderson subsidiary, Realty Development Eastland Inc., sold it to Amazon for $9 million.

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