Interactive Research Timeline Last researched April 20, 2026

Monroeville Mall History

From visible construction in 1968 to the April 8, 2026 redevelopment watch state, this page pulls verified milestones, film history, anchor changes, renovations, and photo credits into one living timeline built to keep expanding.

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2006-2008

This logo was commissioned and used after the construction of "The District" in June 2005 and used all the way until today.

2006-2008 Anchor Shifts Redevelopment

Guinness Book of World Records and Retail Upheaval

Monroeville Mall hits a milestone by making its way into the Guinness Book of World Records with the largest Zombie Walk. Boscov's collapses into bankruptcy and restructuring causing Monroeville Mall to lose yet another anchor. This disruption is actually positive in that the new vacancy later makes the Penney relocation possible.

History

**World Record Zombie Walk at Monroeville Mall**Credit: Wikimedia Commons, 10/29/2006

By 2006, Monroeville Mall was entering a period in which its retail identity and its cultural identity were beginning to pull in different directions. On the retail side, the former Kaufmann’s space was being reshuffled as part of the wider post-May/Federated department-store consolidation. In February 2006, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Boscov’s had agreed to take over the Kaufmann’s locations at Monroeville Mall and South Hills Village. By August 2006, Boscov’s was preparing to open at Monroeville, with the Post-Gazette noting that the Monroeville store would employ close to 400 people.

At nearly the same moment, Monroeville Mall’s identity as a film-history destination was being transformed into an active public event culture. On October 29, 2006, the mall hosted Pittsburgh’s first major Walk of the Dead zombie gathering, staged at the very shopping center made famous by George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Contemporary Post-Gazette coverage reported that 894 participants came to the mall to try to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest zombie walk. Just as important, later 2007 coverage treated that 2006 gathering as the benchmark that the next Monroeville walk would attempt to surpass.

**Guinness Book of World Records for Largest Gathering of Zombies**Credit: Monroeville Mall, 10/29/2006

That 2006 event matters because it established the template for what followed. It proved that the mall’s association with Dawn of the Dead could be activated as a live public attraction rather than simply remembered as trivia from a famous film. In that sense, 2006 was not a prelude to the later zombie years but the year the modern Monroeville horror-tourism era truly began.

By 2007, Monroeville Mall was still a substantial regional shopping center, even as its identity was beginning to change. A retail market study prepared in July 2008 described the mall as a two-level, 1.13 million-square-foot center with 96 percent occupancy and sales of roughly $320 per square foot. It also noted that, despite its mid-market anchors, the mall had strengthened its tenant mix through the newer open-air District section. In other words, Monroeville Mall was not yet a failing property. It remained commercially important, but it was also becoming something more unusual: a shopping mall whose national identity was increasingly tied to memory, film culture, and events.

That shift became unmistakable in the fall of 2007. In October, Monroeville hosted the first full-scale It’s Alive! Zombie Fest, a weekend that turned the mall and surrounding convention space into a public celebration of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead legacy. Advance coverage in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described a two-day event centered on the Pittsburgh ExpoMart, with the zombie walk itself returning to the mall on Sunday morning. Post-event accounts show that this was not a casual fan gathering, but a coordinated regional attraction that combined horror fandom, live entertainment, celebrity appearances, charity fundraising, and the symbolic power of the mall’s place in film history.

**Zombie Fest 2008**Credit: Ryan Mecum, 10/25/2008

The 2007 zombie walk became the defining event of the year. Organizer accounts reported that 1,124 zombies signed in at Monroeville Mall, and that the walk generated 1,229 pounds of food for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Coverage also shows how broad the festival had become: vendor exhibits, films, gaming tournaments, author panels, Tom Savini-related makeup demonstrations, celebrity guests from the Romero films, and a larger convention atmosphere all made the weekend feel less like a stunt and more like a cultural pilgrimage. A contemporary Dread Central report likewise described 1,124 zombies converging on the mall and treated the event as a new world-record gathering.

There is, however, an important archival nuance in the surviving record. Some contemporary reports use the raw 2007 event tally of 1,124, while 2008 promotional material describes the Guinness-certified 2007 total as 1,028. The most likely explanation is that the larger number reflected sign-ins or event attendance, while the smaller number reflected the figure Guinness ultimately accepted under its own counting rules. For archive purposes, both numbers should be preserved, with a note explaining that they refer to different stages of the same event record.

In 2008, the zombie phenomenon only grew. Organizers announced World Zombie Day, with Monroeville Mall serving as the hub of a coordinated international food-drive event. A September 2008 release said that 52 cities had signed on across the United States and abroad, with the Monroeville walk positioned as the focal point. A separate October 2008 event notice described Zombie Fest as a free, all-ages, two-day fan festival at the mall, and again stressed that Monroeville would be the center of World Zombie Day. Monroeville was no longer just the site of a cult film location; it had become the ceremonial center of an expanding zombie culture.

**Boscov's prepares to open two new stores with promises of local flavor**Credit: Martha Rial, 8/22/2006

The long-term significance of the 2008 event became even clearer the following year, when organizers announced that the October 26, 2008 Monroeville Mall walk had been certified by Guinness at 1,341 participants, reclaiming the world record after Nottingham had briefly taken it. That later certification matters historically because it confirms that the 2008 Monroeville event was not just a sequel to the 2007 success. It was the moment when the mall’s horror identity became international in reach.

Yet at the same time that Monroeville Mall was gaining worldwide attention through horror tourism, it was also absorbing a serious retail shock. One of its anchors, Boscov’s, had only recently arrived. As part of the former Kaufmann’s reshuffle, Boscov’s moved into Monroeville in 2006 and opened with real expectations behind it. That is what makes the 2008 collapse so striking: this was not a long-failing legacy tenant, but a relatively new anchor that had been presented as part of the mall’s stabilization.

That optimism collapsed in 2008. Reuters reported in early August that Boscov’s had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and put itself up for sale as consumer spending weakened. Local Post-Gazette coverage identified Monroeville Mall and South Hills Village as two of the chain’s 10 planned store closures, and noted that the two local stores together employed about 300 full- and part-time workers. As the liquidation proceeded, the local impact became clearer. Post-Gazette coverage reported that closing sales were beginning in mid-August 2008, and WARN notices indicated that 129 jobs would be lost as a result of the Monroeville closing and 175 at South Hills Village, probably by mid-October. Another Post-Gazette report also noted that the deal that had placed Boscov’s in Monroeville and South Hills had been part of a larger department-store reshuffling after the Federated/May changes. Its failure therefore disrupted not just one store, but a broader effort to stabilize Pittsburgh-area mall competition. Other noteworthy developments from 2008 reinforce how strongly Monroeville Mall was being recast through popular culture. In June, Tribune-Review reported that Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno included scenes shot at Monroeville Mall and introduced audiences to the fictional Monroeville Zombies hockey team, a clear wink to Romero’s legacy. The article is useful because it shows the mall’s zombie identity moving beyond horror fandom and into mainstream studio filmmaking.

**Boscov's Northwest Front Entrance**Credit: Sam Howzit, 2006

2008 also appears to mark the beginning of a more permanent, in-mall preservation effort around the mall’s horror history. A later Pittsburgh City Paper retrospective states that Kevin Kriess first opened what became the Living Dead Museum in 2008 as a toy and collectibles shop in the mall, with a Dawn of the Dead tribute room in the back. Even though that source is retrospective rather than contemporary, it is important because it places the origin of Monroeville’s later museum-based horror interpretation squarely within this 2008 moment.

Taken together, 2006 through 2008 form one of the clearest turning points in Monroeville Mall history. Commercially, the mall was still functioning as a viable regional center, with strong occupancy and a recognizable anchor lineup. Culturally, however, its distinctiveness was coming more and more from its ability to draw visitors through memory, spectacle, and film history. The zombie walks transformed the mall into a destination for Romero fans just as the Boscov’s bankruptcy exposed how fragile traditional department-store retail had become. In that contrast, one can see the future of Monroeville Mall beginning to emerge: less defined by what it sold, and more by what it meant.

Key Historical Facts

February 2006: Boscov’s agreed to take over the former Kaufmann’s spaces at Monroeville Mall as part of the regional department-store reshuffling
August 2006: Boscov’s opened at Monroeville Mall in the former Kaufmann’s anchor space, making 2006 the start of the short Monroeville Boscov’s era that would end in bankruptcy-driven closure two years later.
October 29, 2006: Monroeville Mall hosted the first major Walk of the Dead there, drawing 894 participants in a Guinness world-record attempt for the largest zombie walk
October 2007: Monroeville Mall became the center of the first full Zombie Fest weekend, expanding the zombie walk into a larger horror convention and live event
Organizers reported that the 2007 Zombie Walk had 1,124 signed-in participants, while later 2008 promotional material referred to 1,028 as the Guinness-certified 2007 total
The 2007 event also had a strong charity dimension. Organizer reporting said the Monroeville walk generated 1,229 pounds of food for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank
September 2008: Organizers announced World Zombie Day, with Monroeville Mall as the hub of a coordinated international zombie walk and food-drive event involving 52 cities
October 26, 2008: The Monroeville Mall zombie walk served as the centerpiece of that year’s World Zombie Day and later received Guinness certification at 1,341 participants
August 4, 2008: Boscov’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced plans to close 10 unprofitable stores. Reuters tied the filing to weaker consumer spending, rising food and energy costs, and tighter vendor credit

2005 Average Cost of Living

What everyday life cost during this chapter of Monroeville Mall history.

2005 Snapshot

Milestone Videos

Playable milestone video records associated with "Guinness Book of World Records and Retail Upheaval".

4 videos

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WTAE Monroeville Mall Zombie WalkYouTube Video

From the 2006 Monroeville Mall Zombie Walk hosted by "The It's Alive Show"

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2007 Zombie Walk Monroeville MallYouTube Video

We recall this event was called "The It's Alive! 2007 Zombie Fest." My wife and I and a friend had dressed up and participated. I filmed but did not publish until now, just after the death of George Romero, who with Richard Ricci and others, created the Night of the Living Dead.

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Zombies return to Monroeville MallYouTube Video

In 1968 George Romero filmed "Night of the Living Dead" which has become a cult classic. 10 years later he filmed the sequel "Dawn of the Dead" in Monroeville Mall, east of Pittsburgh Pa. In a tribute to these films, the 2nd annual Zombie Walk was held in Monroeville Mall in Oct. 2007. Here are scenes from that event.