Stupid Business Idea Northway Mall Pittsburgh

This is a picture of the Northway Mall in Pittsburgh, PA.

Over the past year, they have ripped out a movie theatre, 5-6 storefronts, and the entire interior enclosure that connected the stores on the north side to the south side of the mall. They replaced it with what you see in the above picture: Concrete and woodchips.

We think this was pretty stupid in a few regards:

Loss of Lease Income from the stores that were ripped out
Pittsburgh is cold and rainy 75% of the year, which means going outside to get from one side of the mall to the other side of the mall is enough to make a lot of people not shop there.
Giant patches of woodchips do nothing more than encourage kids to start kicking and throwing woodchips at you while you walk by
Abundance of bad drivers now even more confused on how to drive and where to park.
Did I mention it’s always cold in Pittsburgh and the last thing you want to do is go outside to get from one end of the mall to the other side?

This is by far one of the stupidest remodeling projects and business ideas we’ve seen in a long time. How could this be considered an improvement? We don’t even want to know what was spent to do this. I’m sure they could use someStrategic Philanthropy too.

Rob says:

April 5, 2008 at 9:20 am

I would venture to say that was probably the dumbest remodel ever. They’d probably be better off bulldozing everything but Dicks and Marshalls and call it a day. I’d say Old Navy but they just put one in Ross Park. Jack asses.