The owner of Pittsburgh Mills in Frazer is taking action to patch the mall’s pockmarked roads, just days after they became the target of a criminal investigation.
But the $20,000 Namdar Realty has allocated for repairs represents 0.5% of the more than $4 million the New York-based company and Frazer officials ballparked as the cost of fixing all of the roads at the retail complex.
Paving contractor Patch Management will be working through Thursday, a worker confirmed, to fill some of the complex’s countless potholes. Some of them have been festering for years, becoming something of a local fixation as they’ve added difficulty to even the most routine shopping trips.
Frazer Secretary Lori Ziencik told TribLive that Namdar allocated $20,000 for repairs.
Namdar, known for buying failing retail sites and letting them wither, is the target of a criminal investigation launched by Frazer police and the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office as well as a civil lawsuit and code enforcement actions from the township. Authorities are powerless to repair the roads, which are owned by Namdar, leaving legal action as their main recourse.
In a search warrant obtained by TribLive, police and the district attorney’s office allege Pittsburgh Mills businesses have paid a monthly road maintenance fee for years that, until this week, was apparently not going toward its intended purpose.
The search warrant, served on U.S. Bank NA of St. Paul, Minn., where Namdar has the bank account associated with the road maintenance fee, sought the account application, signature cards, statements and records of deposits and withdrawals for the maintenance fee account.
Lowe’s and Eat’n Park, which pay $1,431 and $520 a month, respectively, are named in the warrant as among the businesses that pay to have the roads at the Mills complex maintained. Eat’n Park has put nearly $42,000 into the fund since July 2018 — enough to fund Patch Management’s work order this week twice over.
All businesses contribute money proportional to their frontage, according to County Councilman Nicholas Futules, who pushed the district attorney’s office to act in February. The fee also covers salt and plowing in the winter, he noted.
In the civil lawsuit, Frazer claims the road conditions have become a public nuisance. The case has yet to go to court.
The township also issued a series of code violations this month related to the roads. Namdar has until Wednesday to take corrective action.
“We’re applying all legal pressure possible,” Ziencik said.
Namdar did not return a TribLive request for comment.
At least one business has grown fed up of waiting for Namdar to act.
Walmart, which also operates a Sam’s Club at Pittsburgh Mills, paid a Latrobe company last week to pave a roughly 500-foot section of road behind the Michael’s store. Delivery drivers were complaining the road had become impassable, a Walmart spokesperson previously said.
It is not known how much Walmart paid for that work.
Walmart did not immediately return a request for comment related to the maintenance fee.
As the potholes have deepened, so has Pittsburgh Mills shoppers’ bag of metaphors for navigating them.
Brandon Dewey, 45, of Apollo described traversing Pittsburgh Mills as “hell.” He goes there daily as a Spark delivery driver for Walmart and, while he has never damaged his car there, it was just last month he saw someone hit a rut and blow out a tire.
Since 2021, Frazer police have received 38 reports on the road conditions involving 30 flat tires, nine damaged rims and seven tows. Two pothole strikes were so violent they activated vehicles’ crash notification sensors and sent emergency personnel racing to the scene.
The experience is akin to a “battlefield” or a “game,” said Cindy Downard of Lower Burrell as she walked out of Michael’s. It’s not uncommon, she said, for cars to swerve across the median as they try to dodge potholes. Frazer police noted this phenomenon in the search warrant served on Namdar as well as drivers abruptly stopping or, during rainy conditions, mistaking potholes for puddles and hitting them dead on.
Even with the recent repairs, Downard is unconvinced of Namdar’s long-term commitment to the shopping destination.
“I think they just want that mall to disintegrate,” she said.