Walmart purchases Bethel Park Shopping Center near Pittsburgh

[TheFugitive]

Walmart has purchased the Bethel Park Shopping Center south of Pittsburgh for around $40 million.

https://patch.com/pennsylvania/pittsburgh/walmart-purchases-pittsburgh-area-shopping-center

Earlier this year Walmart grabbed headlines by purchasing the infinitely larger Monroeville Mall.  There is already a Walmart in the Bethel Park Shopping Center, in a former Ames location that was once a G.C. Murphy Mart. (It was here that I had my interview where I was hired as a manager by Ames).

The shopping center has a Pep Boys, which is mostly empty as they closed their retail parts store and now just do auto repairs.  And there is a Giant Eagle next door.  A former Fashion Bug closed when that chain went out of business, and a Dollar Tree moved into another shopping center down the road.  That section was then torn down.

I suspect that the plan here is to wait for the leases to run out on Pep Boys and Giant Eagle, and then evict them so that the whole center can be demolished and a Super Walmart can be built on the site.  The Walmart that is currently there is in a very small former Ames footprint, and also has to deal with an existing noncompete clause in Giant Eagle's lease.  Hence the grocery selection in that store is small to non-existent.