DA gives update on Century III Mall demolition

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala on Wednesday said a potential buyer is close to finalizing a deal to buy the property that was once home to one of the largest malls in the world.

By JUSTIN VELLUCCI
TribLive

Demolition of Century III Mall, whose decades-long fall from grace saw the third-largest mall in the world collapse into “a monument to blight,” is expected to wrap up by spring, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said Wednesday.

A potential buyer has voiced interest in developing the 100-acre West Mifflin site, the county’s top prosecutor told reporters during a Downtown Pittsburgh press conference. An attorney for the mall owners confirmed Zappala’s sparse details on the project.

No updates were provided Wednesday on criminal charges against the mall’s owners, whom Zappala began prosecuting in 2024 after West Mifflin officials deemed the structure a nuisance and condemned it.

“This could be an incubator for development in that area for the next 15, 20 years,” Zappala told reporters. “It’s a developer’s dream.”

“It would be a great asset, not just for West Mifflin — but for the region,” West Mifflin Borough Manager Brian Kamauf added.

Attorney Steve Townsend agreed. He represents the property owners, Century III Mall PA LLC, a Las Vegas-based firm formed in Pennsylvania in 2013.

“There is a potential buyer” for the property, Townsend told TribLive. “It’s still in the infancy stages. But it is moving along.”

In July 2023, the owners of the long-dilapidated mall that once stood as the crown jewel of shopping in Western Pennsylvania had appealed borough officials’ decision to condemn the property. Zappala Wednesday called that move “the last straw.”

Last June, a Pennsylvania appeals court upheld the borough’s decision to raze the former mall.

The 1.3 million-square-foot structure opened in 1979 and enjoyed decades of successful operation. However, it sold at sheriff’s sale in 2013 for $10.5 million and continued to fall into disrepair.

Drone footage, which Zappala shared Wednesday with reporters, showed the mall’s aging bones and crumbling interior. Graffiti, its obscenities blurred out by prosecutors, covered walls and pockmarked long-shuttered storefronts. Sunlight shined through gaping holes in the mall’s ceiling. Debris littered barren corridors.

“You could do a movie if you wanted to in there — an apocalypse movie,” Zappala quipped while the footage played.

Zappala said Wednesday the former Sears location is the “last man standing” on the site, which borders Route 51 — a central artery in Pittsburgh’s South Hills. It will cost about $1.7 million to bring down the store — and Zappala maintained the mall owners will be stuck with the bill.

Zappala said he also is pressing the owners to spend about $1.9 million to re-construct an access road on the sprawling property. Elected leaders in Harrisburg have earmarked about $1 million for that project.

“West Mifflin should not be paying for that,” Zappala told reporters Wednesday. “I intend to make sure (Century II Mall PA LLC) lives up to that obligation.”

Townsend, the mall owner’s attorney, told TribLive his client is “certainly holding up their end of the bargain.”

The company filed for bankruptcy in 2018, court records show. Two attorneys who represented the firm in bankruptcy court did not return phone calls or emails seeking comment Wednesday.

A year after mall owners filed for Chapter 11 protection, West Mifflin and the West Mifflin Area School District sought more than $1 million from the company in unpaid property taxes.

Century III Mall’s last operating store, JC Penney, closed shortly thereafter — in October 2020.

In the years that followed, the mall became a destination for urban explorers who would break in and take video of the deteriorating structure.

Following a fire in April 2023, and a teenager falling through the roof two months later, West Mifflin council moved to have it razed. The DA’s office filed criminal charges — including risking a catastrophe and making a public nuisance — about nine months later.

On Wednesday, however, Zappala focused less on legal wrangling than the economic potential of the site, which Kamauf, the borough manager, told TribLive was assessed decades ago for $143 million.

“I want this shovel- ready,” Zappala said. “We’re not there yet. We’re close.”