Pittsburgh Mills Project in Full Swing

Ian Ritter is national online editor for GlobeSt.com/RETAIL. TARENTUM, PA-The Mills Corp. is opening Pittsburgh Mills on July 14, a center with a combination of full-priced and value tenants, the first such type of development the company has built from the ground up. The center will include a 1.1 million-sf enclosed mall called the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills and the open-air Village at Pittsburgh Mills, the size of which Mills has not yet determined.Borders Books and Music, Dick’s Sporting Goods, J.C. Penney, Kaufmann’s and Sears Grand are among the anchor tenants in the Galleria portion. Big box stores, including a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Sam’s Club are anchoring the Village.Mills is developing the centers with longtime German investment partner Kan Am and the locally based Zamias Services Inc. When the center opens, it will be the Mills Corp.’s second in Pennsylvania. The company also operates Franklin Mills outside of Philadelphia.Meanwhile, during Mills’ third quarter conference call yesterday, company officials said they were exploring the Canadian cities of Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver to build a second center in that country and could start construction as early as next year. Earlier this month Mills opened Vaughan Mills, its first center in Canada, outside of Toronto.Company officials also said tenants in different countries might start to cross-pollinate. A Canadian tenant in Vaughan Mills has expressed interest in opening stores at up to seven malls in Mills’ US portfolio. And its US-based tenants are looking to expand to Mills Madrid (Spain) Xanadu and other potential centers the company might build in Italy and Spain.The Arlington, VA-based Mills Corp. owns 38 centers totaling 47 million sf. Over the quarter, the developments reported record sales per-sf of $355.