Neighborhood Facebook groups and Nextdoor. They have a lot in common. Typically, the posts fall in one of these categories:

• Fireworks or gun shots? It’s loud. No one cleared either with me.
• What are all the sirens for? Where are they?
• There is a suspicions person or group of teenagers walking around the neighborhood.
• I found a hair in my pizza and thought I would try to destroy the livelihood of all involved.
• Solicitation of professional goods and services, only by “a college student” or “retiree” willing to severely undercut prices for those professional services.

On a side note, I highly recommend @bestofnextdoor on Twitter.

But then there’s the worst kind. It starts innocently enough. Someone wants to know what is going in to an old building that’s vacant or being torn down/renovated. Then someone jokes, a bank, a mattress store, or Spirit Halloween.

Then. Then, its the worst. People answer the question with what they want to go there, but with authority (or lack of basic writing skills) and make it seem like that is what is going there.

They wish. They guess.

They equate real concrete answers to be as equally fanciful to their own.

The latest in my area after the never-ending round of “what is being built in the old Pizza Hut,” is what will occupy the long-abandoned Kmart location. (Please, watch Pittsburgh Dad try to find an open Pizza Hut.) I mean, I have no love for the Hut… but why do they always cut n’ run?

To further complicate things, as is standard practice in at least Southwestern Pennsylvania… our town and township borders do not match the zip codes and mailing addresses. Just because a building has a Bridgeville mailing address, it doesn’t mean it’s actually in Bridgeville.

People are wishing hard for Target, and Chick-fil-A . Then people say they don’t want Target or Chick-fil-A. Also, no one can spell Chick-fil-A, even as they are replying to something that mentions it and spells it correctly. It’s always Chic Filet or Chik Fila or something equally absurd. It’s a small, but maddening detail.

I bring you, the saga of Burlington and most likely Ross moving into the old Bridgeville Kmart location, as presented by local Facebook groups and Nextdoor, and as ignored by members of local Facebook groups and Nextdoor. It’s all over local social media if you look, but no one an handle the search button. It generally looks like this, people: 🔍

• Nextdoor:
  • (Oct 26): Businesses coming to Bridgeville.
  • (Apr 19): Old Kmart in Chartiers Valley Shopping Center.
  • (Jun 16): Old Kmart on Washington Pike
  • (Jun 28): What’s Happening With Old Kmart?
  • (Jun 30): Does anyone know what they are building where Pizza Hut in Bridgeville.
  • (Aug 12): What is being built in the old Kmart site in Bridgeville/Chartier Valley mall ?
  • (Aug 14): I think I heard a sasquatch last night, it was out walking its pet chupacabra.
  • (Aug 26): Target.
  • (Aug 29): Target??
• Facebook | You know you’re from Bridgeville when…:
  • (Aug 27): ~ If you haven’t been to Chartiers Valley Shopping Center lately (Avoid it today, traffic is a real mess), here’s what must be the new Burlington going up …
  • (Jun 18): What is that 🔍 button for?
  • (Apr 11): Anyone know what’s going in where Kmart was ? Rip Kmart
  • (Apr 3): Demolition Permit on the old K-Mart
  • (Mar 12): You know how it used to smell like poop in Kmart?
  • (Mar 9): So I was just told Bridgeville Kmart has a sign on the door that it is going to become Big Lots.
  • (Jan 6): Does anyone have any idea what the old Kmart on Washington Pike is going to be turned into?
  • (Aug 22): Anybody know what the plans are for the old kmart?
  • (Nov 3): Bring back Taco Bell!!! 🌮 let’s make a petition starting here!!
  • (Aug 26): Someone told me that Target and Chick fil a was going to be coming to Bridgeville shopping center by Giant Eagle. I hope its true.
  • (Oct 11): Going up on the old Kmart…
  • (Jun 18): Does anyone know what is going in the old K-Mart building and have you heard rumors of a Chick-fil-a coming this way soon, too?
  • (Apr 16): Anyone know what is happening down at the old k-mart…there is a fence around the front of the building
  • (Apr 19): For anyone interested, there is a public meeting for anyone interested in the variances that Chick-Fil-A and Burlington have requested for Chartiers Valley Shopping Center. You can read their requests here:
  • (Mar 4): I bet he’s thinking about other women.
  • (Jan 4): K-mart is closing …. 🙁
  • (July 28): This may have been asked before but is anything going to go in the old Office Max?
• Facebook | Bridgeville PA Area Community Discussions:
  • (Jul 16): Does anyone know what’s happening with the old Kmart?
  • (Jul 28): Posted in another Bridgeville group but maybe I should have posted here.
  • (Feb 3): Is anything moving into the old Kmart?
  • (Apr 11): Anyone know what’s going in the space where Kmart was?
  • (Sep 8): Also, is there or is there not a Dominos in the surrounding area of Bridgeville up at the shopping district?
• Facebook | What’s Going On In Scott?
  • (Aug 29): What are they building at the Chartiers valley shopping center in the old Kmart?
  • (Jun 14): I know this has been asked, but what is coming to the old kmart by Giant Eagle?

I mean, if only all these could somehow link back to each other, and the actual factual information could be sorted out.

I hope they got the smell out of the building. That Kmart used to totally smell like poop over by the K Café.

All sings point to Burlington replacing Kmart and Chick-fil-A razing & rebuilding where the current empty Taco Bell lies. Ross and a Pet Smart may be squeezed into the Kmart space also. A little birdie told me because they saw my repeated request for factual information in these threads. A true journalist can’t reveal their source, right?

• 

• 

🎯

My personal prediction: 6 months after Burlington opens in Bridgeville/Collier Township, people will still be asking (via Facebook community groups and Nextdoor) what is going in at the old Kmart location… and other people will still be answering that they drove by and saw red so it must be a Target. 🤦‍♂️

Actual factual information:

• Collier Township Zoning Hearing Board on Burlington: ZHB-2021-0005
• Collier Township Zoning Hearing Board on Chick-fil-A: ZHB-2021-0003
• Google Maps: Burlington – Opening Fall 2021
• Retail Properties: Chartiers Kmart Brochure 12.9.19.indd
• BJ’s Wholesale: Opening Soon In South Fayette
• Hanna Commercial Real Estate: The Piazza South Fayette
• Bridgeville.org: Restaurant Complex Planned for Former Star City Site in South Fayette
• Bridgeville Borough
• Bridgeville.org
• Collier Township
• South Fayette Township

Thank you for coming to my TURD ^{_{(Totally Unfounded Rumor Department)}} Talk.

OK. I really need to go do something more productive with my time now.

Please, feel free to share your actual factual information in the comments, or wildly speculative conjecture. Apparently feelings are facts everywhere these days, not just in politics.