Syracuse's Saks Off 5th Gets Sacked

While Destiny USA is still Syracuse's go-to mall, it too is not immune to store closures. Take this, for example. Saks off 5th was one of the outlet stores to open as part of the Destiny expansion from the Carousel Mall days. While the loss of Saks will leave a vacancy, I don't expect it to hit the mall hard. Saks' parent company has been looking to close locations in an effort to be more viable. And with new tenants, such as LEGO, already announced to open elsewhere in the mall, it doesn't look the mall is losing steam anytime soon.

While in the area visiting family, we took a trip to the mall and I decided to get some photos before this store is gone forever.

Former Kmart #3529

NOTE: This post comes from outside the blog's coverage area.

With the loss of this Kmart in spring 2019, the entire Pittsburgh market is now without a single Kmart store. In fact, the closest Kmart stores to Pittsburgh still operating are Leechburg or New Castle. Kmart owned this location, which likely explained why this store was the one that lasted longer than other Pittsburgh stores. At least the future of this building has a known purpose, something of which cannot be said for other old locations. It will serve as a home of U-Haul storage facility since U-Haul bought the property. Not really exciting, especially since this is part of a shopping center, but its something at least.

This is one of two or three Kmart locations I've visited to use the old auto center as a makeshift garden shop. This one, however, had Kmart's drive-thru auto center which honestly was pretty neat to see in person. This store was the only location I've personally been too to have the drive-thru feature.