With over 1.4 million square feet of retail area, The Highlands is the premier retail center in the Upper Ohio Valley/Wheeling area and a regional center serving the Greater Pittsburgh/Tri-State region. This regional destination draws shoppers equally from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. Immediately off Interstate 70 and just 38 miles from Pittsburgh, the center offers a wide variety of shopping, dining, lodging, sports, and entertainment amenities. The Highlands is home to one of the nation’s top performing Cabela’s retail stores (176,000 SF of retail space and a nearby 1.2 million SF distribution center). Additional retailers include Target, Walmart, Menards, Hobby Lobby, Kohl’s, Best Buy, and JCPenney.
The Highlands continues to expand, led by the completion of the state-of-the-art Highlands Sports Complex, featuring an indoor 200,000 square foot multi-sport facility with a full-size turf field, 6 courts, second story mezzanine for optimal viewing, outdoor zip-line/aerial adventure, climbing wall area, arcade, fitness area, and café/concessions. Additionally, there is an adjacent full-size outdoor turf field with additional fields and ancillary buildings under development. This facility is best in its class in the Greater Pittsburgh/Tri-State region and sits conveniently among 3 major cities – Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Cleveland. In addition to the sports complex, nearly 300,000 square feet of retail space has been constructed since 2018 including Menards, Hobby Lobby, Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, Chipotle, Xfinity, Aspen, and Taco Bell. Few, if any, retail centers in the region have experienced this level of expansion in recent years. Growth is poised to continue with the development of additional areas and a reported 40% increase in sales thus far in 2021 (compared to 2018-2019, and not including pandemic-impacted 2020).
There are approximately 900 hotel rooms within a 1.5-mile radius, including multiple Marriott, Hilton, and Wyndham branded hotels. The Highlands is also just a few minutes from Wheeling and serves as Wheeling’s only major power center. Because of the area’s topography and lack of developable land, barriers to entry are extreme and The Highlands is positioned to remain a dominant retail center locally and regionally. The average daily traffic count for I-70 is 52,166 vehicles.
Adam Weidner
Century Realty