HERMITAGE, Pa. – Demolition of the vacant Shenango Valley Mall should be completed by the end of March, and plans for redevelopment of the site should be outlined by mid-January, a Hermitage city official said.
Sereday’s Trucking Inc. in Brookfield, Ohio, applied for and received a demolition permit for the property, said Mark Longietti, business and community development director for the city.
“We expect that 2025 will be a year of significant construction activity. We expect the build out will be in phases and involve multiple years,” he said.
Butterfli Holdings 011 LLC, an affiliate of Flicorp LLC, based in Pepper Pike, Ohio, acquired the mall in August 2022. Its remaining anchor tenant, JCPenney, vacated the property following a protracted legal battle.
Once asbestos abatement within the property is completed, demolition of the mall interior will take place before exterior demolition, so the activity won’t be visible from the outside, Longietti said. Kimball Environmental in Duke Center is the abatement contractor listed on the demolition documents.
“They’re supposed to get [the demolition] done in 90 days,” he said. In addition to the mall building, the contractor will take down the former Sears Auto Center and Firestone Auto Care buildings, while the Wendy’s restaurant will remain on the greater mall property.
A Flicore representative said last week he did not have updated information to share regarding the project.
Longietti said Flicore is expected to outline its plans for the site at a Jan. 13 meeting of the city planning commission, and a separate planning commission meeting might be scheduled that week to address the plans for the mall property.
“Everything that we know is that they intend to redevelop the site into individual buildings,” a mix of restaurants and retail-oriented properties, he said. The site also would feature pedestrian connectivity as well as “some common or public space,” he reported.
The city has received infrastructure grants totaling about $5.5 million from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to support a “town center” project tied into the mall property, including funds to bring a road to the property off the roundabout at state Route 62 and East State Street.
The grant funds leverage expected investment of more than $100 million, and Flicore has invested at least $7.1 million already, Longietti said.
The city official views it as a “transformational project” for the entire Shenango Valley region, not just the city of Hermitage. The public has long desired additional restaurant, retail and entertainment options, and city officials envision some public space with flexibility for different events as part of the project.
“We think this is the most valuable property in the region. It has the highest amount of vehicular traffic between suburban Erie and suburban Pittsburgh,” he said. “That’s a good part of the reason that you see the grant dollars that are attached to this redevelopment. Our elected officials, particularly our state legislators [Sen. Michelle Brooks and Rep. Parke Wentling], believe that this is a project that will benefit the entire region and really transform it.”