Walmart ends a piece of its history, a symbol of consumerism and a movie setting: 120 businesses expelled and $34 million collapsed

Many American malls have become zombies as US consumers’ shopping habits have changed with the advent of e-commerce. However, one of those located 15 miles outside of Pittsburgh once had real-life ‘zombies’ roaming its halls in the 1978 movie ‘Dawn of the Dead’ by George A. Romero.

That 1978 horror film made the Monroeville Mall a tourist destination for fans of the director’s ‘Trilogy of the Dead’, thousands of whom each year make pilgrimages from as far away as Japan and the UK. However, Walmart plans to demolish this piece of cinematic history to make way for the retailer’s vision for the future of the company.

Walmart has big plans for famous zombie mall

The giant US retailer based in Bentonville, Arkansas, purchased the 1.2-million-square-foot Monroeville Mall for $34 million in February. While its exact plans have been kept under wraps, it is reportedly planning to tear down the iconic mall to create an open-air multiuse retail center complete with a Walmart and a Sam’s Club.

It will also have dining and entertainment spaces as well as public and pedestrian areas reports Pittsburgh Business Times. Work is scheduled to begin in 2027 with plans to open it to the public in 2029.

According to Brandon Svec, national director of US retail analytics at CoStar Group, this could be Walmart’s “first foray into a real estate strategy it publicized in 2018,” reports The New York Times. That plan envisions turning its parking lot space around its stores into common areas as well as adding local businesses.

However, before the redevelopment can begin, 120 businesses that are still operating at the Monroeville Mall will have to move out. The company has offered them rent abatement if they agree to vacate early.

But some like David Wang, owner of Saga Hibachi Steakhouse & Sushi Bar, say that the amount he would save on not paying rent wouldn’t come anywhere near the cost of rebuilding and relocating.

“Progress never misses a good metaphor”

Romero’s movie ‘Dawn of the Dead’, which used the Monroeville Mall as its filming set, was a critique of American consumerism and the director would later call the location “the perfect metaphor.” Even in their undead state the zombies still flocked to the mall out of remembrance of the place comments one of the characters in the movie.

Reflecting on the demise of Monroeville Mall film scholar David Klein told Buzz60, “there’s poetry in that. It’s life imitating art in the most literal way possible.”

“Progress never misses a good metaphor,” he added.

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