Giant Steps Forward in State College

    While Giant has only a handful of locations that are within the blog's coverage area, we haven't really explored them. It's time to get the ball rolling with a look at the only location within the counties I cover that I've explored the interior of thus far. This store appears to be a relocation of an older location in Lemont that finally gave a repurpose to long vacant Ames store on the south side of State College. Giant at least kept an exterior detail from Hills and later Ames by not removing the two triangles either side of the main storefront. Enjoy the tour!

Nittany Mall

The Nittany Mall traces it roots back to 1968 when it opened as a Crown American mall with anchors Grants and Penn-Traffic. An 1970 expansion added third anchor Sears while Gee Bee took over the Grants space in 1976. The Penn Traffic space would become a Hess's dept store after being sold to Crown American. Another expansion in 1989 and 1990 would add JCPenney as a fourth anchor and cause Sears to relocate to a bigger space on the east end of the property where it would operate until January 2018.

The Gee Bee space would be converted into a Value City in 1992 until it closed in 1997. The building was demolished and replaced with a newly constructed Kaufman's which would become Macy's in 2006. The Hess's space became Bon-Ton in 1994. JCPenney closed its doors in 2015 and the space became a Dunham's Sports in 2016. Bon-Ton would close in spring 2018 as part of the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy wave. 

Currently, the mall is anchored by Macy's and Dunham's. The Bon-Ton and Sears spaces sit empty. The pictures of the mall I have below are mostly from 2015 after JCPenney had closed. A couple newer pics from 2018 are also included toward the end.

Google Maps street view of Sears

Kaufmans/Macy's

Penn Traffic/Hess/Bon-Ton

Google Maps street view of the former JCPenney

Former CVS

Interior Tour:

The next few pictures come from March 2018:

While this mall is no doubt struggling, I don't quite consider this to be a dead mall quite yet. If the mall owners can get some sort of entertainment venue in, I feel this mall could make a comeback. If Macy's were to close this store however, I feel the mall will have a hard time recovering.

I give this mall a 'C' in its current state.