Banksville Shopping Plaza, Pittsburgh, PA

[TheFugitive]

Located on Banksville Road (US 19 South) about 3 miles from Downtown Pittsburgh,
this plaza hosts a Kuhn's Supermarket, which takes up the majority of the space.

Also present is an Indian specialty store, a bar/restaurant (Coach's Bottle Shop), an H&R Block location, a nail salon, Subway, Starbucks, a Barber Shop and a PNC Bank.

When I was a kid there was a local department store in this plaza called Stephen Richards, where my mom would spend hour upon hour shopping for clothes.  There was a Kroger supermarket next door.  Stephen Richards had a 2nd. floor. When Stephen Richards went out of business the Kroger's expanded into that first floor space, where it remained until the mid-1980's when Kroger left the Pittsburgh market over a labor dispute.  The second floor became office space.  Kuhns then moved into that Kroger space (which still visibly resembled a 1980's Kroger store until a recent remodel.)

In the 80's Coach's Bottle Shop was known as Papa J's, and became infamous as being the place where Pittsburgh Pirates players would go to buy illegal drugs.  This info came out during the Pittsburgh Baseball Drug Trials in 1985.

I found a picture.



Coach's Bottle Shop/Papa J's would be at the far left-end of the picture.  



The bank, Subway and Starbucks are to the right and not visible in this shot.  Directly across the street is a Rite Aid on property where a Burger King used to sit.  It closed in the late 90's, and before being torn down, was used as a movie set for the movie Dogma (it is seen in the film as the Mooby's burger joint).

Banksville Plaza is located within the Banksville neighborhood of the City of Pittsburgh.  However, at the right end of the parking lot and just behind it lie the boundaries of Dormont Borough.  The massive Dormont Swimming Pool is just across the street to the right.  Dormont's high school football stadium is on the hill just above the plaza.  The Rite Aid across the street lies in Mount Lebanon, with Scott Township just up the street a bit further.

Banksville Plaza used to have this MASSIVE parking lot sign which was surrounded by neon tubes, which would blink randomly in a very unusual pattern.  Eventually it wore out and was replaced with this more modern sign.

[TheFugitive]

For the first time in 35 years the Kuhns store in Banksville Plaza is undergoing
an extensive interior remodel. 

(Editorial Note: It is quite disconcerting when, after shopping in a place for over three
decades and becoming accustomed to where everything is, they pick it all up and
move it on you).

It looks like they are expanding the store at the south end.  After the end of tax
season H&R Block closed and moved down to the opposite end of the plaza by
Coach's Bottle Shop.  The entrance to the old H&R Block location was then bricked over. 
They knocked out the wall between that unit and Kuhns, and the deli counter is in the
process of being moved into that new space.

The former pharmacy inside Kuhns which closed some time ago is being torn out
and that space dedicated to other uses.  This had been a video rental section prior
to becoming a pharmacy in the early 2000's.