A couple of mannequins and a drop ceiling were among the last vestiges inside the old JCPenney building in Lower Burrell, now gutted to make way for an open-air, 90,000-square-foot electrical supply warehouse and store.
The former department store’s brick shell still stands, but most of the interior is gone.
Framing has sprouted on either end of the building for a retail store and offices. Outside, the city’s largest parking lot — rivaling the size of a football field — soon could be busy again when Schaedler Yesco’s electrical distribution center moves to its new home from its current location in RIDC Park in O’Hara.
The renovation will include a rehabbed 1970s-style block façade, a walk-in electrical store for the public, offices, an expansive warehouse space, a repaved parking lot and more, company officials said this month.
A warehouse might not seem like a natural repurposing for a building that once housed the stylish department store. Nonetheless, the location held an allure in the city’s most tired-looking commercial strip mall. JCPenney closed its Lower Burrell store in 2005 when it moved to the Pittsburgh Mills mall in Frazer.
“This location allows us to grow and serve the Western Pennsylvania market,” said Ryan Jones, executive vice president of Schaedler Yesco, a family business headquartered in Harrisburg.
The Lower Burrell site will open sometime between August and October.
About 30 employees will move to Lower Burrell from the RIDC Park. Jones couldn’t give the number of prospective new employees but said they are always hiring.
Filling this long-vacant store is a win for the city, which has watched its shopping district decline like most other small towns over the decades.
City council and its mayors, past and present, have been actively courting new businesses.
“It’s important when residents and nonresidents drive down our main road, they see thriving businesses, not boarded up windows,” Councilman Chris Fabry said. “Having that building filled will lead to other businesses coming here and filling additional properties.
“The economic impact spans beyond just tax dollars,” he said. “Local businesses should see an increase in patrons and sales as Schaedler Yesco’s customers, employees and management stop to eat, shop and fill their gas tanks.”
Related:
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• New firm to add jobs after settling into former JCPenney building site in Lower Burrell
• Long-vacant former JCPenney site in Lower Burrell purchased by O'Hara electric supply firm
A lot of the appeal of the site is its location and proximity to the Route 28 expressway and other highways, said Gary Meanor, a territory manager of Schaedler Yesco and a Harrison resident, where he is chairman of the township commissioners. The new electrical supply facility will join the shopping center’s other tenants, including U-Haul Moving & Storage, Dollar Tree, a First National Bank drive-up ATM and a Dunkin’ coffee shop that’s under construction.
Why not move to Lower Burrell?
Meanor said the old department store was on his radar as he scouted other sites for Schaedler Yesco, which was located in New Kensington before moving to the RIDC Park in 2012. Currently, the company has 22 locations in Pennsylvania and New York, including a site in Greensburg.
The company employs about 400 workers across all locations and was ranked 17th in the state in 2022 for the best places to work in Pennsylvania by the Central Penn Business Journal. It soon will add 80 more employees because of its upcoming acquisition of Youngstown Electrical Supply (also known as Yesco, which has no previous relation to Schaedler Yesco).
Schaedler Yesco customers include Penn State University, the Hershey Co., Kellogg’s foods, and contractors working on the FNB office tower in Pittsburgh and an upcoming residential and retail development in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood.
The 16,000 to 20,000 items expected to be available at the Lower Burrell facility will range from electrical items for a family’s game room to items for large steel mills and city buildings, Meanor said.
The business will bring tax dollars and other economic benefits to the city. The sale of the building to Schaedler Yesco brought in $18,000 in real estate transfer tax last year. The site will continue to generate local real estate tax dollars.
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The electrical supply company could generate new revenue, such as an estimated $12,000 to $20,000 in business privilege tax for the city based on tax payments from similar-sized businesses, said Brian Eshbaugh, the city’s treasurer and tax collector. The business-specific tax is levied on business sales to help offset the cost of city services used by local businesses.
Resident Chris Schubert, 76, does miss the Lower Burrell shopping center’s heydays, when she could pick up Clinique makeup and Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds perfume at JCPenney. But she’s happy to see new businesses coming into the city.
“This shows the public that a place like that is interested in coming to Lower Burrell,” she said. “They are spending all of this money to renovate what was a horrendous-looking building. We are worthy of them bringing their business to our city.”
Although the shopping center popularity of decades ago has faded, business growth in a community can be real.
“It’s beneficial to have a company like Schaedler Yesco that will help local contractors with access to material without having to travel to the Pittsburgh Mills or RIDC Park where these guys are now,” Councilman David Stoltz said.
“I don’t think people realize yet just how many contractors from the (region) will be coming there regularly to pick up their material,” he said.
Experienced in the construction industry, Stoltz expects heating and air conditioning companies as well as electricians to frequent the city with the Schaedler Yesco facility. Local restaurants and establishments will benefit from the extra traffic, too, he said.
“You grab your material and lunch when you are out,” he said.
Schaedler Yesco won’t draw anywhere near the type of truck traffic attached to some big-box stores. Company officials expect about eight tractor-trailers to drop off supplies daily. Hours of receiving will be limited, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Mary Ann Thomas is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Mary by email at mthomas@triblive.com or via Twitter .