Perry Plaza

Perry Plaza is a power center 2.9 miles (4.6 km) southeast of downtown Erie, Pennsylvania, between Broad Street, Fairmount Parkway and Bayfront Connector in the city of Erie. It currently has two open anchors which is Erie County Farms and Family Dollar.
== History ==
The construction for Perry Plaza began in July, 1951 and construction was completed just a year later. On June 5, 1952, the Perry Plaza opened to the public with three anchor tenants which were Gray Drug, Loblaws and A&P. Other original tenants at the plaza included Woolworth, Quaker Dry Cleaner, Carter Shoes, Zehe's Bakery, Dean Phipps, Union Bank and a bunch more. In 1953, a 20-lane bowling alley opened in the plaza and was named Perry Plaza Bowling Center, it was equipped with AMF automatic pinspotters. In 1958, Gray Drug was converted into Eckerd. On May 3, 1966, a massive fire started inside of the A&P grocery store which spread outside to other neighboring stores, nobody was injured during the fire but the whole north side of the Perry Plaza completely collapsed, during the same year, the north side of the plaza was completely rebuilt and A&P reopened back up. In February 1975, A&P closed after the company was purchased by Booz Allen Hamilton who closed down 36% of its 3,468 locations, the Perry Plaza A&P was one of those on the list. In 1982, Loblaws closed down but was replaced with Golden Dawn a year later in 1983, however closed two years later in 1985. In 1994, the former Golden Dawn Space became Erie County Farms.
Decline at Perry Plaza started in the early 1990's as more low income apartments started to be built around the area near the shopping center, which caused an increase of crime and robberies in the area. Perry Plaza then started to gain a reputation for crime which resulted in many of the stores packing up and moving to safer areas in Erie and other shopping centers in the Harborcreek area. In 2001, the reputation got worse when a teenager robbed a 30 year old man at gunpoint while walking out of the Family Dollar store. In 2004, the Bayfront Parkway freeway was extended south towards Harborcreek which added an exit to Broad Street from the Bayfront Connector, this led to more people from the low income neighborhoods in the east side to get easier access and to go shopping at Perry Plaza due to few shopping options in East Erie. In 2015, Classic Lanes (formerly Perry Plaza Bowling Center) decided to close down due to having issues with people loitering in the bowling alley and causing issues with patrons. In 2016, the Rose Beauty stores' windows were completely shot out by a group of people driving around the plaza during the day, this led to Dunn Tire leaving the plaza and moving to Harborcreek as well as 3 more stores leaving.
Category:Malls in the United States
Category:Malls in Pennsylvania
Category:Dead Malls
Category:Erie County, Pennsylvania
Category:Malls that opened in 1952
Category:Former Eckerd-anchored Properties
Category:Former Loblaws-anchored Properties
Category:Erie County Farms-anchored Properties
Category:Family Dollar-anchored Properties