010220...R EASTWOOD 2...Niles...01-02-20...Interior view of the former Sears store at the Eastwood Mall. Photo by R. Michael Semple

NILES — Cafaro Company boasts on its corporate website that the company’s Ohio Valley Mall in St. Clairsville has the only Boscov’s department store in Ohio.

The company’s going to have to get its tech people to change that; it won’t be accurate come the fall.

October-ish is when the Reading, Pa.-based, family-owned Boscov’s is planning to open inside the massive former Sears at the Eastwood Mall, officials from Boscov’s and the Cafaro Company have confirmed.

The store will be Boscov’s third in a Cafaro Company-owned mall. The other is at Mill Creek Mall in Erie, Pa. Coincidentally, it also occupies a former Sears store.

“We open one store a year, so we are very selective, and this has been on the radar for many years,” said Jacob Stein, senior vice president of corporate communications, real estate and maintenance for Boscov’s. “All of the stars kind of aligned in the last couple years that allowed this to become a real opportunity.”

An official announcement is planned for 11 a.m. today at the mall. It will end months of speculation surrounding just what retailer will occupy the space after Sears closed in late 2018 following bankruptcy by parent company Sears Holdings.

Geography and demographics are two of the three key factors that led to Boscov’s decision to open at the mall, Stein said. The other was the company’s desire to partner with other family-owned companies, which the Cafaro Company is, and the Cafaro Company’s willingness to invest and maintain its properties in addition to its contributions to the community.

“You add all of those things together and that lines up to be a good opportunity for us to pursue,” Stein said. “We’ve been looking at it for over five years.”

Said Joe Bell, director of corporate communications for Cafaro Company, “Quite honestly, there are great parallels between his (Boscov’s) and ours in terms of the way we work together, the values we hold. We have found working with Boscov’s has really been a wonderful experience, not just for us, but for all of the people we serve in the various communities we serve.”

Boscov’s, which has 49 stores in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, was founded in 1914 by Solomon Boscov, who settled in Reading, Pa., from Russia and began selling household goods to farmers in the area. He opened his first retail store in 1918.

The company grew through the decades and embarked on an aggressive expansion in the 2000s, but became overleveraged and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2008. It’s former CEO, Solomon Boscov’s son, Al, came out of retirement to get the company back on its feet by securing private financing and government-backed loans to keep it afloat.

Successfully navigating bankruptcy, Boscov’s continues to expand, but at a much slower pace. This latest expansion is into a market where the company is relatively unknown, but has a core local customer base the company has found will travel to stores in St. Clairsville and in Pennsylvania.

“We already have a good handful of customers residing within a few miles of Niles, that Mahoning Valley market, that are shopping with us at those other stores so they are making a very long drive, which was one of the biggest points of evidence to us that this was an exciting opportunity, that this community is already making a commitment to drive very far to shop with us in our other stores, and that traditionally has been a good indicator of success,” Stein said. “If that community is will to drive to you, they’re asking for you to come. That is their way of saying please come.”

Demolition work has been happening inside the former Sears to prepare the space for Boscov’s. Crews have been removing the top nine inches of floor for asbestos, according to a permit granted Nov. 6 by the building department in Niles, and the site is about ready to turn over to Boscov’s contractors to complete the store’s build out, Bell said.

The store will inhabit the 119,900-square-foot space of the former Sears and more, including the 25,800-square-foot Tilt Studio, which closed when its lease ended Dec. 31.

In addition, several stores in that concourse will be relocated inside the mall to make way for the new retailer. They include A+ Nails salon, Dafffin’s Candies and St. Joe’s at the Mall.

The Niles’ Boscov’s will employ about 300 full- and part-time employees.