Compass Advisory Partners Now to Manage Shoppes at Northway

An Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Judge today appointed a receiver to take over management of the Shoppes at Northway at 8000 McKnight Road. 

Judge Christine Ward ordered the receiver, Compass Advisory Partners LLC, to take over management starting at 7 a.m. tomorrow.

A hearing scheduled for 9:30 a.m.today immediately adjourned after the judge was presented with an agreement to the receivership by the Pittsburgh-based Northway Group, L.P., which owns the property.

, Lincoln National Life Insurance, asking that Compass Advisory manage day-to-day operations of the shopping center while foreclosure proceedings take place.

The Northway Group stopped making its payments to its lender in October and owed $23,688,588.43 as of Jan. 24, according to court records. 

John T. McKinny, the chief executive officer of McKinney Properties and president of the Northway Management Corporation, a general partner of the Northway Group, declined to comment last week on the foreclosure proceedings. 

Neither he nor a representative of the firm appeared in the courtroom this morning. 

Danny DeMarco, whose father owns Northway Shoes & Repair in the Shoppes at Northway, showed up for today's hearing hoping to get more answers about the future of the mall. 

His father's shop has been part of the mall going back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. His father has owned it for 32 of those years. They're growing—making 1,500 shoe repairs a month—and they sought to expand in a nearby space in the mall but were unable to close the deal under Northway Group's management, he said. 

He said they've received no correspondence from management in years—other than invoices for the rent—not even when the foreclosure proceedings began.

"It's been a slap in the face to the people who have been here and working hard," he said. "It's just not right." 

The shopping center was built in 1962 with the concept of being a family-oriented community shopping destination, according to its website. 

It is anchored by  , and . It lost Border's Books as another of its anchors last fall.