Washington Crown Center, Washington, PA

[TheFugitive]

This mall is located in Washington, PA, about a half-hour drive south of Pittsburgh.
I drove down there last evening because I had a bunch of Sears points expiring and
it is the location of quite literally the LAST Sears store that is anything close to an
acceptable drive from my home.  I used the points to pick-up some birthday presents for my daughter.

The mall is located on the west side of town, off the last exit of I-70 heading towards
West Virginia.  I worked here briefly during my time at Hills, when the mall was known
as the Franklin Mall.  It was one of 2 malls in Washington at the time, the other being
the Washington Mall, over towards the junction if I-70 and US 19 to the east.  At the
time that was the livelier of Washington's two malls.  The Franklin Mall was sold and
renamed Washington Crown Center.  It is now the better of the two by far.  Washington
Mall is about as dead as Century III.

The experience of shopping that Sears store was very sad.  There were only a handful of employees in the entire place, and it looked run-down and disheveled.  I suppose that is to be expected of any Sears that still has its doors open at this point in time.  One guy was stationed at the jewelry counter and he seemed to be responsible for everything to the right of the hardware/seasonal area.  This store had a very BIG appliance department, which appears to be what they're banking on to stay in business.  A number of the store's exits were permanently closed, I imagine to cut down on the shoplifting with such a light staff (Century III's Sears did the same thing in its final days)

The rest of the mall however was a pleasant surprise.  Bright, clean, relatively healthy.  The only major vacancy I noticed was a recently closed Bon Ton store off the main concourse.  That's a bit of a curiosity to me as this place is quite literally on the outer fringes of the Pittsburgh Metro.  One major draw in the summer months is that right next door they built a ballpark which holds around 3000, and is the home of the Washington Wild Things, an pro baseball team in the independent Frontier League.  You pretty much have to drive through the mall's parking lot to get to the stadium.

My old Hills Store, which had become a Gander Mountain location for many years,
is now a Rural King.  From the traffic flow that seems to be the main attraction at
this mall these days.

Coming back I got caught in a HUGE traffic jam on I-79 which is going to
make me think twice about going down to shop at that mall again.