Can storage facility open in former Sears site at Galleria? Richland Township board to deliberate
Apr. 10—JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — The Richland Township Zoning Hearing Board is set to deliberate on Wednesday night whether a storage company may open a facility in the former Sears department store location attached to The Johnstown Galleria.
The mall at 500 Galleria Drive, owned by Leo Karruli, is zoned for commercial use, and the township's ordinance does not explicitly prescribe storage as an acceptable use.
The ordinance enumerates more than 60 uses allowed in a "C2" commercial zone, and "storage facility" is not one of them.
At a public hearing scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Richland Township building, 322 Schoolhouse Road, the zoning hearing board is set to deliberate on whether plans by Tom Fitzpatrick, of Storage of America, merit a variance or special exception to the ordinance, according to a public notice posted by the township.
The notice said the company, which purchased the Sears property through an online auction in September, plans to operate climate-controlled, individual self-storage units at the site.
Karruli has been working to revitalize the mall since purchasing it in August 2022.
The former Sears location had always been separately owned and was not part of Karruli's mall purchase.
Karruli subsequently bid against Storage of America for the building when it was auctioned in September of last year. Storage of America won the property with a bid of $1.5 million.
Karruli said his work includes paving the road that forms a ring around the entire mall property, including Sears. Traffic to the would-be storage facility would use that road.
"You can't change from a commercial zone," Karruli said. "I don't know how the zoning can change the zoning for a storage unit at Sears and not change my road. It's a commercial road."
Even if the zoning hearing board approves storage as an acceptable use in the commercial zone, Karruli said he would take the case to court because the establishment of a storage facility would violate an agreement among the mall's then-owner, Zamias Services, and separately owned anchor stores Sears and JCPenney. That agreement is still in effect, he said.
"It's like I'm being the bad guy, like I don't want it, but it's not me," he said. "There is an agreement."
That agreement, officially on file at the Cambria County Courthouse in Ebensburg, Karruli said, secures the site through the future as a retail store only.
"If a business wants the property, it has to stay a retail store," Karruli said.
