Drive down McKnight Road past McCandless Crossing this month and you'll see two kinds of change happening at completely different speeds. In one corner, the old Dick's Sporting Goods box that sat empty for more than two years is finally splitting into two working storefronts, on the exact schedule the landlord announced. A few hundred feet away, the hot pot restaurant that spent nearly three years as a "coming soon" sign has been open and seating regular customers since spring. Same parking lot, same shopping center, two entirely different timelines. That gap is worth understanding if you live nearby and have been wondering, every time you pass an empty storefront, whether it means weeks or years.
The Box Dick's Left Behind
Dick's Sporting Goods moved out of McCandless Crossing in early 2024, relocating to a larger Dick's House of Sport format at Ross Park Mall. That left a sizable vacancy in the middle of one of the North Hills' busiest retail stretches. What replaced it wasn't a single new anchor. According to Pittsburgh Business Times reporting picked up in December 2025, the space is being split between two TJX Companies brands: a TJ Maxx relocating from its former Gibsonia location, and Sierra, the off-price outdoor retailer formerly known as Sierra Trading Post. Both were slated to move in next to the existing HomeGoods store by mid-August 2026, a date that has now passed, which means the two stores should be open or very close to it by the time you're reading this.
That's a meaningful shift in how the center is being managed. Rather than waiting for a single tenant big enough to fill a former sporting goods footprint, ownership divided the space to bring in two national retailers at once. What stands out isn't how fast the whole process moved from vacancy to opening, it's what happened once the leases were actually signed. From the confirmed tenant announcement in late 2025 to the planned opening date, the runway was short and specific: about eight months, and the date held.
Two Timelines, Side by Side
| Milestone | Dick's space → Sierra + TJ Maxx | Shabu Shabu Hot Pot and Grill |
|---|---|---|
| First public signal | Dick's departure, early 2024 | "Coming soon" signage posted, July 2023 |
| Self-declared or confirmed target | Tenants confirmed by Pittsburgh Business Times, December 2025 | Reportedly aiming for a January 2025 opening, per a December 2024 update |
| Doors open | Mid-August 2026, per the announced plan | May 2026 |
| Time from that confirmed target to opening | About eight months, on schedule | Missed its own stated target by close to a year and a half |
The gap that matters here isn't total elapsed time, which lands in a similar range for both. It's predictability. Once the two national chains had signed leases, the center could tell you almost to the month when they'd open, and that date held. Shabu Shabu announced a January 2025 target in December 2024, then didn't actually open until May 2026.
The Restaurant That Outlasted the Anchor's Turnover
Shabu Shabu Hot Pot and Grill first put up signage in the outparcel across from La Roche University, in the same lot as Midwest Shooting Center, back in July 2023. The local blog PennsylvAsia tracked the project's stalls for years, alongside a wave of other Pittsburgh-area hot pot and Korean barbecue openings that hit similar delays elsewhere in the region, several of which never opened at all. By December 2024, the project was reportedly aiming for a January opening, a target that came and went with the doors still dark. When it finally welcomed customers this spring, PennsylvAsia noted it had been "coming soon" for roughly 1,000 days.
That's the part worth remembering the next time a small storefront posts a target date. This build-out, with a modest footprint and a simpler permitting path than a two-tenant anchor conversion, still missed its own self-declared opening by close to a year and a half. Meanwhile, once the two national chains next door had signed leases, the timeline from confirmed tenant to opening ran close to plan. Scale didn't decide the outcome here. What holds up a small storefront tends to be financing, staffing, or a lease that isn't as final as the signage suggests, none of which is visible from the parking lot.
One Spring Night That Had Nothing to Do With Any of This
Not every change at McCandless Crossing runs on a construction timeline. On a Tuesday evening in late March, an electric vehicle plugged in at a charging station in the plaza caught fire, drawing a large emergency response. Witness Robert Zedo, who was in the lot at the time, described the scene to CBS Pittsburgh: "Every explosion, it seemed like the flames got bigger." No one was hurt, but several nearby cars were damaged before crews contained the blaze. McCandless Fire Marshal Jeff Wissner later explained that EV battery packs mounted underneath the vehicle make this kind of fire especially difficult to fight, since they don't need oxygen to keep burning.
It's a reminder that not everything about a shopping center's rhythm is planned. Retail turnover follows leases and permits. A parking lot incident follows nothing at all. Both are part of what it actually feels like to spend time here, and neither shows up in a leasing brochure.
What the Refinancing Actually Confirms
In June 2026, JLL Capital Markets arranged a $73.5 million refinancing for McCandless Crossing on behalf of its owner, AdVenture Champion Partners. The filing describes a 387,771-square-foot open-air center that is currently 99% leased, with a weighted average lease term of 5.7 years. JLL specifically pointed to the newly signed TJ Maxx and Sierra leases as evidence of continued demand from national retailers along the corridor, which the release notes sees more than 65,000 vehicles a day.
That level of occupancy and lease-term length isn't the profile of a property in transition. It's the profile of one that just absorbed its biggest vacancy in years and came out with a longer runway than before. For anyone who has watched the empty Dick's box sit vacant for two and a half years and wondered whether the center was struggling, the financing tells a different story: lenders priced this as a stable, high-demand property, not a distressed one.
The Civic Calendar Doesn't Wait on Any of This
Underneath the leasing and construction timelines, McCandless Crossing runs on a third schedule entirely, one that has nothing to do with which storefronts are occupied. The center has hosted a recurring set of community events for years, independent of tenant turnover:
- A Summer Concert Series, with the 2026 lineup announced in late May
- Seasonal trick-or-treating along the storefronts each fall
- A "Hardy" Mums sale hosted by the Greybrooke Garden Club
- A Fall Fun day for families
These events happen whether a given storefront has been dark for two months or two years. They're the part of the center that residents actually build a relationship with, separate from whatever chain is signing a lease that quarter.
What This Means If You Live Nearby
The next time you pass a storefront that's been sitting empty at McCandless Crossing, the useful question isn't just what's coming. It's what kind of vacancy it is. Once a national chain has a signed lease, the center can give you a specific opening window and hit it, as the Sierra and TJ Maxx timeline shows. A smaller, independently operated concept can announce its own target date and still miss it by more than a year, with little public signal of when it will actually open. Knowing the difference is the only way to guess correctly at how long to wait.
None of this changes what makes the center convenient day to day. Trader Joe's, Lowe's, and a growing restaurant lineup are still anchoring one of the busiest retail corridors in the North Hills, and the property's recent financing suggests that's not changing anytime soon. What's changed is the pace at which different pieces of it move, and now you know which clock to watch.
If you're weighing what a location like this means for a move within North Allegheny School District, whether that's a first home near the corridor or a sale timed around this kind of retail activity, The Harmotto Team can walk through what it actually means for your plans. Schedule a Consultation to talk through the details specific to your situation.
