Warren Bon Ton Closing & Mall Update

The Warren Mall is a mall I've covered here on the blog multiple times in the past few years, but I once again find myself taking another look it. This trip was made to capture the Bon-Ton here before it will be gone. An unexpected bonus occured in the form of seeing some de-malling of this dead mall in progress.

Sadly the anchor from the mall was going to be part of redevelopment plan, but things obviously didn't work out. I'm sure this has thrown a bit of a wrench into the de-malling plans.

While I'm not saying this was  the plan, I suspect the plans were to keep the mall corridor that led to Bon-Ton from the main doors as seen in the first picture. The corridors to the left for sure and possibly the right would be removed. I know the left is being removed for sure because of this:

A peek through an opening in the wall that will likely be a door. This was the corridor that would of led to Big Lots

Since I was limited on time, I did not see if there were any major changes in the corridor that led to Kmart. One thing that did change is that Label Shopper moved somewhere in this wing to make room for a new store Ollie's. Just like Dunham's, Ollie's does not have mall access which isn't a shocker given that this is transitioning into a shopping center.

Ollie's took over the Label Shopper space and went beyond it into the former mall.

Now for what actually made me to the trip, the clearly dated closing Bon Ton:

I now leave you with look into what will soon no longer be a mall from Bon-Ton:

Former Kmart #4825

Before we dive into this month's Kmart tour, I just want to apologize for a lack of activity here on the blog as of late. I've been quite busy as of late with remodeling the house and that looks like it will continue into May; so once again don't be surprised if there is only 2 posts this month. 

Originally, this Kmart store was located in Lock Haven as a small '70s store from the looks of it. It relocated to its location in Mill Hall in the early 1990s. One interesting thing to note is that this store was supposed to close in the 2002/2003 bankruptcy, but managed to survive thanks to local efforts to preserve the store. Unfortunately, those efforts would not help later when the store closed for good in June of last year. The building remains mostly vacant today with the exception of the garden center side of the store which is now a Harbor Freight Tools store. 

Overall this felt like a very well-taken care of store, but sadly that didn't matter.

Former auto center

And we wrap this post with the original location: