New stores coming to Mt. Nebo Pointe center
Ellen Reagan is happy that the new Mt. Nebo Pointe shopping center will have a Target, one of her favorite stores.
"Right now, I have to go all the way over to McKnight Road if I want to go to Target," said Ragan, who lives in Bellevue.
If it opens by the end of the year as expected, Sportsman's Warehouse would be the first store in the shopping center at the Camp Horne Road exit of 1-279 to begin doing business, said Ohio Township Manager John Sullivan.
The Target store, a Sam's Club and PNC Bank branch are likely to open by March, Sullivan said.
Several smaller shops -- a Hallmark card store, Quiznos sandwich shop, Payless Shoes and Sally Beauty supplies-- will also be in the mall, according to the developer, Diversified Realty Inc. of Cleveland.
Sites for several other stores and a site for a hotel have still not been taken, Sullivan said.
If some nearby residents are happy that the mall will reduce their drive time for shopping, others say they are worried about the traffic the mall will generate.
"There are already enough malls around here, and this one is just going to make traffic worse," said Vince Bukowsky, an Ohio Township resident.
Diversified Realty said the complex will produce 800 jobs when finished and 200 to 250 during construction. The company manages 345 retail properties in 43 states.
Last year, a group of residents lost a lawsuit in Allegheny County Court that claimed that the 20-year, $6.7 million tax-increment financing deal for the project was based on the site being wrongly designated as blighted.
Ohio Township, the Avonworth school board and Allegheny County Council approved the tax break.
Tax-increment financing allows developers to borrow money to improve a project's infrastructure, then pay it back using new real estate tax revenues generated through the development over a specific period of time. Property taxes would again be paid after the specified time period.
Developers Diversified paid $4 million to West Penn Allegheny Health System for the 79-acre site at Mt. Nebo and Camp Horne roads, across from Green Valley Golf Course.
