[EastSideHBG]

Wow, big change LOL


Harrisburg East Mall to get new name

Saturday, June 05, 2004
BY TOM DOCHAT
Of The Patriot-News

Harrisburg East Mall is changing its name to Harrisburg Mall as part of an ongoing makeover at the 35-year-old Swatara Twp. shopping center.

The new name is intended to call attention to renovations at the 850,000-square-foot complex and to serve as a locator for out-of-town shoppers lured to the Bass Pro Shops outdoor-products store scheduled to open in November.

Mark Nobile, the mall's general manager, said Feldman Lubert Adler Harrisburg LP, the property owner, wanted "to do something to signify that this was a rebirth of the center."

He said Bass Pro Shops expects as many as 70 percent of its customers to come from outside the Harrisburg area, and it needed a clear identification point for its store.

"Harrisburg East implies there's a Harrisburg west," Nobile noted.

Nobile said about 20 names were initially considered for the mall, and seven or eight were tested in a survey conducted in the Harrisburg, Allentown, Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre markets. He said Harrisburg Mall was preferred "overwhelmingly" among survey respondents, especially those outside the Harrisburg area.

The name leaves "a local flavor, but it helps people coming from an hour away," Nobile said.

The new name will be on signs installed at the mall's main entrance on Monday.

Many upgrades are planned at the retailing complex, which was the region's first enclosed shopping mall when it opened in 1969. Feldman Lubert bought the property last year and is spending more than $40 million for renovations.

The parking lot is being resurfaced, and Nobile said about two-thirds of that work should be complete in a couple weeks. Work on the exterior facade of the mall fronting Paxton Street also has started.

Last month, Boscov's opened a 185,000-square-foot department store in space once occupied by J.C. Penney.

The 225,000-square-foot Bass Pro Shops store is expected to open in mid-November at the east end of the mall where Lord & Taylor had been located. A new entrance from Paxton Street is planned at the east end of the property, Nobile said.

"It's hopping," he said of all the changes.