I Hope You're Not Wyomissing Out!

Today we're kicking off a series of posts I'm particularly excited for. This was my first annual trip up the Schuylkill River to check out the PA Coal Region retail scene. There's some good stuff coming up that I'm sure you've heard of from other content creators, but first let's check out a dead outlet mall that really didn't get the attention it deserved.

Vanity Fair Outlet Center, Wyomissing, PA
Prior to becoming the brand known as Vanity Fair today, the company went by Reading Glove & Mitten Manufacturing Co. These buildings were their factories and were built in the first couple decades of the 1900's. In 1970, after the huge success of a surplus merchandise tent sale, the company's president decided to turn the recently decommissioned knitting mills  into an outlet store. Vanity Fair itself took up the two main buildings, while a side building and former administration buildings were leased out as mall space for other brands that wanted to make their own outlets. This was not only the first (and by far largest) store in the Vanity Fair chain, but also the world's first outlet mall. This was an instant success, and in the following years several other former factories in the Reading area were turned into outlet centers. While these were neat examples of adaptive reuse, the repurposed factory buildings were just too impractical for retail use. Following the construction of several modern outlet malls near Lancaster in the late 90's, several of Reading's failed. This was the last one, and it had been struggling for years. Its fate was finally sealed in 2017 when a developer bought the property, turning it into "The Knitting Mills," a mixed-use site. Vanity Fair still operates a store here, but not in its original location.
The building seen in this picture was one of the two in the complex that was never converted for retail use. Vanity Fair still owned it, but leased it out to industrial tenants. It has since been turned into apartments, with a restaurant on the bottom. Construction was already underway when I got this picture. The steel framing seen in front is all new.

This building was the main outlet mall; it held most of the inline stores. I've only been able to find one video tour of it pre-redevelopment. Most of this building is now home to the new Vanity Fair Outlet, while a portion has become a Tower Health outpatient center- Tower's also developing a new teaching hospital (which will replace the now-closed Hahnemann Hospital in Philly for Drexel University- that's going to be one hell of a commute) in the outlet's old satellite parking lot across the railroad tracks.

Across the main parking lot from there are the original Vanity Fair Outlet buildings. The new store is massive, but still only a fraction the size of the original.

A 90's addition on the mall/future outlet that served as the main entrance and stairs was in the process of being removed.

The old outlet was split between two of the old mill buildings- red and blue. You should be able to guess which one this is. The building in the background I believe was a power plant for the mill, it was the other of the two non-retail buildings since it was harder to get to. It's sandwiched in between two railway tracks, which is the one major drawback to them building this complex so close to the Reading Railroad's freight depot.

I'm not quite sure why this photo came out at an angle, but here's a more straight-on view of the mall's entryway getting ripped down. It's sad they left the plants in there. :(

A directory of the center- of these buildings, the red and yellow have been demolished entirely, as well as all but the middle 1/3 of blue, which is now the headquarters for UGI Energy Services. Green is the new Vanity Fair Outlet, tan is a surgery center, and light blue is now a Sly Fox brewery. The rest haven't been retenanted yet, but I'm sure it will come soon.

The red building has had a considerable amount of work done to the outside over the years, but as we'll see in a minute has barely changed since its days as a mill on the inside.

Honestly I thought the red building was kinda ugly so I wasn't too sad to see it go, but the datestone and lights were neat to see. I'm hoping they got salvaged.

There were two walkway bridges connecting the red and blue buildings. As an engineering student I got pretty excited about these.

The part of the red building past the bridge had already closed and demolition was underway.

At this point my camera battery had died because I forgot to charge it the night before, so we're switching over to some phone pics...
The inside looked like the basically rolled some carpeting over the floors and called it good. The ceiling and lights are definitely original. It might be hard to see in the photos thanks to the dark paint and the phone I had at the time, but they looked old; not original-old but 1940's-old.

The outlet was a maze of this. If I remember correctly, they were operating on three floor of both buildings.

A sign in the vestibule advertises their website, which at the time redirected to the redevelopment plan. It doesn't lead to anything anymore.

If I remember correctly, this one was looking down the length of the blue building.

While it wasn't the main mall, the basement of the blue building did contain some inline mall space. Unlike the main mall, there's another video of it! One of the vacant storefronts was being used as a staging area for the architectural pieces salvaged from the demolition.

Vitamin World, which at the time was considering a total liquidation, surprisingly stayed here up until the very end.

The basement also had a food court which annoyingly none of my pictures came out well for. At the time of my visit, only Auntie Anne's was still open, though there were a couple spots that looked like recent closures. They probably were evacuating in preparation for the building's closure.

I think this might have been one of the later ones to close, it looked like they only needed some inventory and they could be open.

This was the largest restaurant, and the only one that really had room for customers to walk around inside. No clue what it was, but they had a typical fast food selection and offered a lot of local products. I figure it must have been independent.

Horrible picture of Auntie Anne's. This food court must have been something to see back in the day, it looks like they originally had some kind of neon motif going.

I believe this used to be a Subway. It looks like its been gone the longest out of all of these.

LA Taco Factory was across the seating area from the first row of restaurants. It looks like it may have been a chain restaurant originally- the red and white tile makes me think McDonald's (Lol remember when they used to have those in Food Courts?). McDonald's also has a still-open location in one of the center's parking lots- or perhaps I should say former parking lots; Wawa built a store on everything McDonald's wasn't using for themselves last year.

The neon above this space reads "China Pan," which sounds like an independent restaurant. The neon makes me think it is an older tenant, not one that just popped up after the center went into decline as most independent food court restaurants tend to do.

This store also looked like a recent closure. They advertised pastry classes but it looks like they primarily operated as a regular bakery.

Even fewer of my photos of the stores under the Red building came out; fortunately I can direct you to this video. (Even if you're not interested in the basement it's still worth checking out- they got into the half of the Red building that got torn down first as it was being walled off!) It still had a Carter's in it, which I thought was surprising.

Looking down the hallway. Between it being mostly vacant and not having had much design to start with, there's really not too much more to see.

Timberland had an outlet in one of the administration buildings outside. While this was the only one that dot demolished, the existing outlets were evicted from the rest of the buildings in favor of some higher-end tenants.

Famous Footwear was in another one of the administration buildings. It's currently vacant and being marketed as retail or restaurant space.

This looks like it was a hotdog stand or something along those lines. It was torn down in the redevelopment and replaced with a brick patio.

Heading back over to the mall. It was sad but cool seeing the front ripped up like this.

Here it is a little closer-up...

..and even closer. You can't see too much of the inside, but this is as good a view of it through the front as I could get.

Fortunately, one of the side entrances was not only intact but not even fenced off, getting us this view of the inside. I am amazed they didn't gut this out yet.

I'm 99% sure this building was the main offices for the complex back in the knitting mills days. It was split up between a few stores in recent years, but is now home to medical offices. The loading dock is gone now, and has been replaced with another entrance facing this street.

The Timberland Outlet building, which we saw the inside of a few photos back. It was torn down for more parking.

The first part of the Red building to come down is on the right. They kept the gate house, which during the outlet days served as an information desk but now seems to just be for looks. It can't function as a gatehouse anymore either, since the gate got taken out. The building on the left was another administration office, which was later split between Rawling's Outlet and another long-vacant store. It's now an orthopedic office.

Looking inside the vacant store, There wasn't too much to see.

Looking in between Timberland and the other admin building. I really liked this pathway, it's a shame they had to get rid of it. It only adds insult to injury that they replaced it with more surface parking.

Dunkin Donuts, Reading, PA
This location opened in late 2017. It was built on the site of a small used car dealership. Dunkin, which certainly looks much smaller, manages to occupy the entire space. It opened with the full Donuts name, and was one of the last to do so.

Arco/Sunoco, Reading, PA
This station originally had an A-Plus convenience store, but debranded to generic Snack Shop name around 2010. They seem to have stolen 7-Eleven's stripes, which is ironic considering the fate most current A-Plus's are facing.

Route 61 Diner, Reading, PA
So I'm assuming this is a well-maintained 50's diner, but honestly it could just as easily have been built to look old. The diner's website doesn't give much history, indicating this is most likely a newer business, but that doesn't necessarily mean they built this.

Reading Outer Station, Reading, PA
I was under the impression this was a historic Reading Railroad station, but it turns out this is actually less than a decade old. It was built on the site of an old O'Grady's Restaurant and a low-end shopping center by the Reading & Blue Mountain Railroad. The railroad itself isn't that old either; they formed in 1983 after buying 6 central PA lines from the state. Primarily they serve as a freight railroad, but to take advantage of the scenic views some of their lines have they began offering tourist trains as well.

Long John Silver's & Taco Bell, Hamburg, PA
I had no clue LJS still had a presence in PA. I can think of several closed ones but this is the only open one I've seen in person. A quick Google search shows they've got only two locations within an hour's drive of Philly. Ironically, rural PA has a much denser population of these.

Wendy's, Hamburg, PA
Wendy's opened here in the early 2000's, and was redone to the current look in 2017. I'm assuming that was part of the same project as the building they're developing next door.

Starbucks, Hamburg, PA
Speaking of that development, here it is! I initially assumed it would be a small strip mall given the Starbucks on the end. However, it turned out the rest of the building wasn't destined for retail. It is now home to a St. Luke's Urgent Care Center.
Hamburg is an odd town. It grew out of its proximity to the Schuylkill Canal and Reading Railroad, both of which are now long gone. Unlike most other towns relying on these resources, Hamburg's managed to maintain roughly the same population instead of going into decline. That doesn't mean it's growing or large though (population: 4,400), so I am amazed with the amount of retail they have here. The only reason I wasn't surprised to see a Starbucks is because they've already got Walmart, Lowe's, Cabela's, and Weis. They also have a Wawa, which has got to be the most remote one in the chain- the next closest ones are in Allentown and Reading.

Dunkin Donuts, Hamburg, PA
Dunkin opened here in the early 2000's and was redone in 2015. The brown/tan stripes by the entryway remind me of an un-stirred coffee with cream. I've got to wonder if that was their intent.

Burger King, Hamburg, PA

....or perhaps a better title would have been Hamburger King.

They opened this location in the early 90's, and gave it a halfhearted remodel in 2017. The mansard roof was only taken off of the side seen under construction here; the rest had the blue shingles replaced with metal and hot a new coat of paint.

Hoss's/Subaru, Leesport, PA
Forget about Longhorn, Outback, or Texas Roadhouse- Hoss's is by far the best chain steakhouse out there. Unfortunately they only really operate in northern and central PA; they had one outlier in Lionville for several years (which is how I first discovered them), but that closed in 2011 most likely due to it being over an hour away from the next closest location (which actually happens to be the one pictured here). They seem to be doing well as a chain- they've opened more restaurants than they've closed in recent years. This one was unlucky, it closed in 2018 and was turned into a used Subaru dealership that's most likely an extension of the regular Subaru dealer across the street.

Redner's/Andretti/Family Dollar, Leesport, PA
I didn't realize it at the time, but this building's actually got quite a bit of history. It opened in 1970 as the first Redner's, which at the time was an IGA franchise. They operated here until 2002, when they built a new store next door. This building was then divided up into several small stores, and this corner became home to Andretti Powersports, a motorcycle/ATV/boat dealer operated by local Indycar driver Michael Andretti. That closed up around 2010, and it became a Family Dollar, which too closed in 2019.

Redner's, Leesport, PA
Here's the relocation of the store in the previous picture. It has their standard early 2000's façade. The logo was updated around 2012 to the one seen here. This logo was when they first began to emphasize the Redner's part of the name more than the Warehouse Markets- which was dropped from the name altogether by 2014. Last year, they began an effort to ditch the discount grocer image and adopted another new logo and a radically different décor. It is genuinely nice, and I'm not just saying that because I hated their old décor (plain red lettering on white walls) so much.

Country Squire, Schuylkill Haven, PA
There is no history on this place I could find, but I'm 99% sure it's a broken chain. This Country Squire has both a motel and restaurant and I know of two other places with the same name- Country Squire Restaurant in Broomall, and Country Squire Motel in New Holland. They all look like they date back to the same era and have similar designs, which I think is too much for it to be a coincidence.

Sheetz, Schuylkill Haven, PA
This Sheetz surprised me. I thought it was new, but it actually dates back to the mid-2000's. I didn't realize this design has been around for that long. Its store number is 410, indicating this was built new and didn't replace an older Sheetz on the site.

Texaco?/Shell/Mobil, Schuylkill Haven, PA
I have a feeling this was originally a Texaco that Shell picked up when they left the region in 2004. It lost its Shell branding in 2017, but quickly picked up the Mobil name.

Wouldn't it be funny if I put a song by Vanity Fare in a post centered on Vanity Fair? Haha, no it wouldn't but I'm gonna do it anyway.

I could've put some Taylor Swift in since she's the most famous person to come out of Wyomissing, but I'm too kind to subject you to that torture.
Okay I may know all the words to You Belong With Me but we're not going to talk about that.