Review Detail
The Block Northway: Perhaps the Key Block In The North Hills Retail Shopping Corridor
(Updated: February 24, 2025)
Overall rating
4.8
Uniqueness
5.0
Design & Appearance
4.0
Shops & Services
5.0
Safety & Reputation
5.0
Location
5.0
The Block Northway, ah, "Northway Mall", as it will forever be called by me as a long-standing resident of the North Hills, has undergone many iterations over the decades. This latest one is a great one.
From being a mostly indoor mall with a discount movie theater to a primarily outdoor accessible shopping plaza featuring a weekly farmer's market in the summer months, this most recent iteration is a great one--and in keeping with today's consumer preference for more open-air shopping. What the Block Northway amounts to is essentially a high-end luxury discount shopping center to compliment Ross Park Malls' high-end brand offerings just down McNightmare Road.
Heck, they even added a BJs as an anchor tenant too. Remarkable, somehow, this shopping plaza, compliments what you have across McKnight Rd. over in McIntyre Square and Ross Park Mall down the street. It is somewhat of a combination of both of those shopping experiences and still something different.
You can't beat having the only Dave & Buster's in the north hills area of Pittsburgh. Moreover, you got a Wahlburger's restaurant too. This is to say nothing of some of the more fast-casual offerings such as Blaze Pizza and Piada Italian Street food. There is a little something for everyone at The Block Northway.
The Block Northway certainly looks modern and sleek and upscale too, which is great. However, there still are vestiges of the old wonky upper level and lower level experience they wanted to minimize with the redesign of the mall from its days as a primarily indoor shopping venue. The roundabout by Dave & Buster's is awkward but maybe that is me. We here in Pittsburgh are not as used to roundabouts perhaps as they some other parts of the country (at least that is my theory).
The location is convenient to many communities in the North Hills as it sits literally on the border of Ross Township and McCandless Township, both of which are centrally located in the heart of the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh. Yes, right up the street, McNightmare Rd for us locals, you have McCandless Crossing and that is a great little shopping plaza, replete with all stores you, and is home to the area only movie theater (I still like the good old movie theater experience), but The Block Northway just might be the keystone block in the wall of shopping options that constitute the retail mecca that is today McKnight Rd (McNightmare to use locals) that runs through North Hills up out of Allegheny County.
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