Greengate Mall Revisited
www.greengatemallrevisited.com
Changes Through Time
Alongside discount retailer Kmart, a Thorofare Markets store (shown above) co-anchors the new Greensburg Plaza retail center in 1963.
There's no doubt that many of the changes in the vicinity of the former Greengate Mall were due to the Amos K. Hutchinson Bypass. While there are many stores and restaurants now, that wasn't the case 15 years ago. Interestingly, the area around the Greengate Mall were nothing more than acres of wooded land in the early 90s, with the exception of the following shopping centers. The Gabriel Brothers Plaza, which was formerly called the Greensburg Plaza at an earlier time, housed the only Kmart store in Greensburg. The Greengate East Shopping Center, with Big Lots as its current anchor, was originally home to a Giant Eagle supermarket, which moved about a mile west to the Hempfield Square development. In this section of Greengate Mall Revisited, we will talk about some of the areas near the old mall, which have changed dramatically throughout the years.
Amos K. Hutchinson Bypass
| Built to improve traffic flow through Downtown Greensburg, the first phase of the $289.4 million dollar expressway opened on July 13, 1993 from U.S. Route 119 to U.S. Route 30, about a mile west of the Greengate Mall. The remainder of the highway, from U.S. Route 30 to U.S. Route 22, opened on December 9, 1993. Since the highway opened, a lot of development has taken place in the area, including Hempfield Plaza, Hempfield Square and Hempfield Pointe. The Amos K. Hutchinson Bypass was named in honor of a former state representative from Greensburg, who was responsible in getting the highway built. |  |
WHJB Directional Site (Hempfield Square)
If you lived during the 60s, coincidentally also the same decade when Greengate Mall was built, you probably remember listening to WHJB-AM, the Greensburg-based radio station which would later become WKHB-AM, now licensed to the nearby borough of Irwin. While WHJB's studios were located in Downtown Greensburg, they also operated the directional site off of U.S. Route 30, west of Greengate Mall. The towers were erected around 1948, and existed for nearly 50 years before the site was bought by the developers who built the Hempfield Square shopping center. The photos below show what the directional site once looked like before the development took place, from the time the towers were erected until the final days.
1948
The towers are being erected on the site.
One of the towers soon after completion.
Here's the base which supported this tower.
1996
The sun sets on the last day the directional towers stood.
Each tower was supported by guy wires, which required more land than a self-supporting tower.
A piece of one of the towers sits on the ground.
Looking east at the directional site. You can also see the water tower out in the distance, which services the Hempfield Heights apartment complex, formerly Greengate Gardens.
This tower has been taken down, leaving the base behind.
Grading work has started on the site to make way for the new Hempfield Square shopping center. Meanwhile, the backup FM tower was left standing for a couple more months and used by WHJB as a temporary antenna until the new site was ready.
Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County (Lincoln Place)
Located at the intersection of U.S. Route 30 and South Greengate Road in Hempfield Township, the headquarters of the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County (MAWC) was built in 1964 at a cost of about $350,000. The MAWC provides water service to approximately 115,000 customers in a service area equal in size to the state of Rhode Island. The headquarters of the MAWC was put on the market in late January 2005, and was sold only three months later to Walnut Capital Acquisitions, Inc. of Pittsburgh for $6 million. The 16.1-acre site was redeveloped into a strip shopping center called Lincoln Place, presumably named for the Lincoln Highway that fronts the site. It currently features a Walgreens pharmacy, among other shops and restaurants.
