Mattress, dental firms committed to retail project at Sharp’s site
August 19, 2016
Rick Shrum
Observer Reporter
Steel is rising at the front of the former Sharp’s Furniture property, where a strip shopping center is in the earliest stages of development. Two tenants will occupy that building, and the owner has identified them.
Clue: Brush your teeth, go to bed.
Aspen Dental and Mattress Firm have committed to that space, Summer Ewing of Win Development said in an email. They are the first two businesses to sign leases for the project off Route 19 in South Strabane Township, below the Trinity Point shopping complex.
A second building will be constructed in the back. Ewing did not say whether any tenants have been secured there. That “tenant mix is still being worked on,” she wrote, adding that she may have an update soon.
The Pittsburgh office of CBRE Group is handling leasing, and Bob Gold is the leasing agent. J.E. Lyons Construction of Latrobe is the builder.
Ewing said her company, based in Belleair Beach, Fla., has yet to select a name for the shopping center. The project has been known as MF Washington LLC.
MF Washington purchased the 3.59-acre property for $2,650,000, according to a deed recorded Sept. 15 in the Washington County Recorder of Deeds office. Owen C. Ewing – Summer’s father – was listed as the operations manager of MF Washington. Belleair Beach was identified as his base of operation.
The deed was recorded a little more than a month after the furniture store closed following a 98-year run. Three generations of the Sharp family owned and operated the store, which was in downtown Washington for 52 years before moving to South Strabane in 1969. Sibyl Sharp Ream and her husband, Dave, ran the business for 12 years before selling.
One tenant confirmed for the Sharp’s property is new to Washington County. The other isn’t new to South Strabane.
Aspen Dental will be making its county debut. Aspen is a national company headquartered in DeWitt, N.Y., and operating in more than 20 states. The Belle Vernon, Robinson Township and Uniontown locations are the closest to Washington.
Across Route 19 from the new project lies a Mattress Firm store in the Strabane Square shopping center. At some point late this year or in early 2017, there will be two such outlets within about a half-mile of each other.
Mattress Firm is based in Houston and has more than 2,400 company-operated and franchised stores in 41 states. There are 18 currently in Pennsylvania, all in the southwestern corner. Washington County has two, including a store off Washington Road in Peters Township, near Canonsburg Lake.
The company also has locations in Bridgeville, Mt. Lebanon and Uniontown.