Photo: Carl Raw on Unsplash
For 40 years there was a mall the size of a small city sitting on a slag dump in West Mifflin. As of this spring, it's gone.
Built on slag, built big
Century III Mall opened its first phase on October 24, 1979, with a second phase following in March 1980. It was developed by the Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation with U.S. Steel, on land that had been a slag dump, and the name came from America's third century. At about 1.29 million square feet with roughly 200 stores at its peak, it was billed as the third-largest mall in the world when it opened.
For anyone who grew up in the South Hills or the Mon Valley, that scale was the whole point. Century III was where you spent a Saturday, saw Santa, bought your first CD, and probably worked your first job.
The long slide
Malls everywhere struggled, but Century III's ending was rougher than most. West Mifflin officials closed the building in February 2019, calling it unsafe after its water and fire suppression systems failed. The JCPenney, with its own outside entrance, hung on until October 2020.
What followed was years of trespassers, water damage, and legal fights with the owners, an affiliate of Las Vegas-based Moonbeam Capital Investments, which had bought the property in 2013. A fire investigated as arson broke out in April 2023. A teenager fell through the roof that June. Borough council condemned the building in July 2023, and the Allegheny County district attorney filed criminal charges, including risking a catastrophe, in early 2024, calling the place a monument to blight.
The teardown
Demolition started on March 26, 2024, with the parking structure, then moved to asbestos abatement and the buildings. The JCPenney wing came down in November 2024, center court in January 2025, and the last structures were finished off this spring, at a reported cost of around $15 million.
What comes next is still being worked out. Officials have talked about a mixed-use redevelopment of the roughly 100-acre site, with retail, medical, and residential uses. Nobody is proposing another enclosed mall.
What it leaves behind
If you grew up there, the odd part isn't that it closed. Plenty of malls closed. It's that the building sat rotting in plain sight for seven years, right off Route 51, where everyone had to drive past it.
Tell us your Century III memory. The food court, the arcade, the movie theater, whatever it is, we want to hear it.