"In Cleveland, people compare us to 'Cheers,' where everyone knows your name." That's how David Barr described the vision for his new fitness and racquet club at a groundbreaking ceremony in South Fayette's Newbury Market almost a year ago. It was a big promise for a construction site that, at the time, was still just cleared dirt behind the gas pumps at BJ's Wholesale Club.
A year later, that promise is close to landing. Just off the same interchange, a smaller, quieter bet already has.
Two Projects, One Exit Ramp
Newbury Market sits off the South Fayette interchange of Interstate 79, already home to BJ's Wholesale Club and a Tesla dealership. In September 2025, The Wembley Club broke ground on a four-acre site there for a 68,000-square-foot racquet and fitness facility, its second location after an original club in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. The South Fayette build calls for two levels, five indoor tennis courts that convert to ten pickleball courts, three paddle courts, five workout studios covering yoga, spin, group fitness, Pilates and boxing, and a 10,000-square-foot equipment floor.
Barr told the crowd at the groundbreaking that his company studied 50 markets before choosing the Pittsburgh region, and that South Fayette in particular felt "exceptionally welcoming." A township report tied to the project's stormwater permitting had originally penciled in a spring 2026 construction finish. The club's own timeline, set at the groundbreaking, pointed instead to a fall 2026 opening. Both can be true at once. It just means the build ran longer than the paperwork first assumed.
As of this writing, that gap has nearly closed. A report from the Observer-Reporter in April 2026 confirmed the club is scheduled to open in September, next door to BJ's.
| Project | Key Date | Status Reported |
|---|---|---|
| The Wembley Club | Groundbreaking Sept. 2025 | Scheduled to open September 2026 |
| Bass Pro Shops | Plans announced March 2024 | No building permit issued as of April 2026 |
The Marquee Attraction Is Still Waiting on a Permit
Bass Pro Shops was supposed to be the headline tenant for Newbury Market. The company announced plans in March 2024 for a two-level, 100,000-square-foot Outdoor World store, with an early 2026 opening in mind. That target has come and gone. As of an April 2026 report, construction had not begun, and township officials had no specific timeline to offer.
The company has cleared some of the paperwork. It secured state environmental permits, and the subdivision plan for the store has been recorded with Allegheny County. But the township had not yet issued a building permit, even though it approved the application for one. Andrea Iglar, South Fayette's director of communications and community development, said the company appeared to be "continuing to move forward with building in South Fayette," which is a careful way of saying nothing has broken ground yet.
So the two Newbury Market projects that started around the same conversation have split. One is opening this month. The other is still somewhere between a recorded subdivision plan and a permit application.
Off the Same Exit, the Small Bet Finished First
While Newbury Market's timeline stretched, a different project quietly filled in. The Piazza sits on Millers Run Road, also directly off I-79, on what used to be the Star City Cinemas site, a short-lived movie theater and then an even shorter-lived discount theater. The original site plan called for five buildings arranged around a plaza, with restaurants and outdoor seating in most of them.
That plan is close to full now. The current tenant roster at the Piazza includes:
- Firebirds Wood Fired Grill
- Primanti Bros.
- Pizzaiolo Primo
- Milkshake Factory
- Bartram House Bakery
- STRIDE Fitness
- Image Studios
- European Wax Center
- GNC
- Raising Cane's
- Mezeh Mediterranean Grill
Leasing materials for the property once listed Raising Cane's and Mezeh Mediterranean Grill under "coming soon." By September 2025, Raising Cane's had already moved into the main tenant list. By March 2026, Mezeh had joined it too. That's a small detail, but it tracks with what's visible on the ground: the Piazza isn't waiting on anything anymore.
It's also where actual weekday life is happening. Bartram House Bakery and Cafe, tucked next to Primanti Bros. in the same plaza, hosted a Coffee & Donuts business networking session with Dollar Bank this past July, the kind of routine, unremarkable event that only happens at a place people already treat as a regular stop.
What This Means for Your Next Six Weeks
If you're planning around what's actually open and running through the rest of the season, here's where things stand.
The splash pad at Fairview Park closes for the year after Labor Day, September 7. If your kids haven't made it out yet, this is close to the last call. Fairview Flicks, the township's free outdoor movie series, keeps going on Friday nights at dusk through October, so there are still a couple of screenings left before it wraps for the year. The Original Farmers Market on Route 50, which the township notes as Pittsburgh's oldest, stays open through November.
Later in the year, once the holidays approach, the township turns Fairview Park into a drive-through light display called Joy-Thru, free to enter from either the Mayview Road or Greenwood Drive side, running into early January. It's not a fall event, but it's worth knowing the same park that hosts summer movie nights and a splash pad also carries the neighborhood through December.
And at Newbury Market, if the September timeline holds, this is the month The Wembley Club's doors actually open next to BJ's. Anyone curious about membership can reach out to the club directly for a tour rather than waiting for a grand opening announcement to find out details.
Two Clocks, Same Exit
The easy version of this story is "South Fayette got a new gym and a new restaurant plaza." The more useful version is that these two additions arrived on completely different schedules, and the schedule tells you something about how commercial development actually plays out here. A smaller, walkable project with a defined footprint filled its last open tenant slots within about six months. A larger anchor project, dependent on a single big-box retailer's internal timeline, slipped past its original target by several months and still doesn't have a firm date for the marquee tenant.
If you live near the South Fayette exit off I-79, that split is already visible without reading a single permit filing. One side is finished and busy on a Tuesday morning. The other side still has a fence around it, for now.
For anyone weighing what these changes mean for their own street, whether that's a first walk through the neighborhood or a longer look at how South Fayette's commercial corridor is shaping up around it, Jonette Shanahan tracks these shifts as part of staying current on the South Fayette market. If you'd like to talk through what's changing near you, schedule a free consultation anytime.
