Eastland Mall (North Versailles, Pennsylvania)

Eastland Mall, formerly Eastland Plaza was a two-level shopping mall 12.8 miles (20.6 km) northwest of downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, between East Pittsburgh McKeesport Boulevard and Maryland Avenue in North Versailles, a suburb of Pittsburgh. The mall had three anchors which once housed Gimbel's, JCPenney and Sears.
== Power Center ==
The first store ever built on the land was a Gimbel's which opened in 1961. On August 15, 1963, Eastland Plaza had opened to the public. Other tenants at the plaza included JCPenney, National Record Mart, May-Stern, Kinney Shoes, Thom McAn and Woolworth. When Eastland Plaza had opened, downtown McKeesport was suffering as JCPenney relocated from there to the new plaza, as well as three other stores which were Immel's, Wander Sales and Richard's Shoes.
== Enclosed Mall ==
On June 6, 1973, Eastland Plaza was enclosed and was renamed to Eastland Mall. During this time, a Gee Bee store had opened, however Gee Bee would later get replaced by Sears.
== Decline ==
Just six years after Eastland Mall's opening, the mall began to have issues with decline. Eastland begin competition with three other bigger malls which were Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, South Hills Village in Bethel Park and Greengate Mall in Greensburg. The area the mall was in was also starting to decline and began to have a reputation for crime, which led to stores relocating to safer shopping centers or shopping malls in the Pittsburgh area. The mall began to hit rock bottom when Gimbel's closed down in 1986. In 1988, Gimbel's, who originally owned the mall, sold the mall to Benderson Development. JCPenney would then close along with Sears which led to most tenants slowly pulling out of the mall even quicker. Finally on February 15, 2005, was the mall was closed down for good and was left abandoned for two years. In early 2007, the vacant Eastland Mall was completely demolished as their was plans to redevelop the site into a shopping center, plans for that however wouldn't work and the land would remain undeveloped. In 2021, the former mall site was purchased by Amazon and plans to build a new distribution center on the property.
Category:Former Malls
Category:Shopping Malls
Category:Malls in the United States
Category:Malls in Pennsylvania
Category:Pittsburgh Area Malls
Category:Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Category:Malls that opened in 1973
Category:Dead Malls
Category:Former Sears-anchored Malls
Category:Former JCPenney-anchored Malls
Category:Former Gimbels-anchored Malls