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Despite what you may have seen on Facebook, the Boscov’s at Lebanon Valley Mall isn’t going anywhere.
LebTown reached out to Boscov’s to verify this after seeing more than 100 comments on a Facebook thread, with original commenter saying that Trader Joe’s was taking over the Boscov’s space, and another chiming in to say that a contract had been signed.
A Trader Joe’s in Lebanon County probably would be met with excitement, if the reaction to the now-open Target and the possibly-to-open Chick-Fil-A are any indication, but one isn’t headed to the Boscov’s in Lebanon any time soon.
“I’m delighted to tell you that Boscov’s in Lebanon is doing well thanks to our loyal customers and coworkers,” said Boscov’s chairman and CEO Jim Boscov in an email to LebTown on Wednesday afternoon.
“We plan to be there for a long, long time.”
Make that another long, long time – the Reading-based department store chain has had its space in the Lebanon Valley Mall for as long as the mall existed. In fact, it was Al Boscov himself who announced in 1972 that Boscov’s Department Stores was coming to Lebanon, and that the company would anchor its own mall with the store.
Boscov’s purchased 49 acres for the Lebanon Valley Mall property in 1972 for about $550,000. Much of the land came from the Sheridan Slag Co. The family that owned the slag operation owns just one property in the mall vicinity as of today, a 2.46-acre plot now in the works to become a Sheetz.
When it opened in 1973, the Lebanon location was the company’s fourth store and its first outside of Berks County.
Boscov’s is now a $1.2 billion business with 49 locations, according to a Reading Eagle profile from last year about Jim Boscov and how the store navigated the pandemic.
By the way, a grocery market at the mall would not be new. An Acme supermarket opened next to Boscov’s shortly after the mall was opened, and today a Price Rite grocery market occupies a newer wing of the mall development on the western side of the property.
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