Busy Beaver will move into former AMC Theatre in Salem Township

While the AMC Theatre location in Salem recently closed its doors, it won’t be long before the property is once again busy as a beaver.

Busy Beaver, that is.

The home improvement retailer officially announced plans to open its 25th story at the Hollywood Squares shopping plaza off Route 22 with a target date of next May . At 55,000 square feet, it will be one of the chain’s largest stores among its locations throughout Western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and northern West Virginia.

“The Delmont (Salem) location is a great fit for us in terms of demographics and geography,” CEO Joe Kallen said. “It’s a high-visibility location and easily accessible on the Route 22 corridor. The building itself is an ideal fit for us, since there aren’t too many big-box structures in the area.”

The company plans to hire between 40 and 50 full- and part-time employees, Kallen said. Plans for the store include a lumber yard, pet and farm departments, a designated contractor service center and an expanded outdoor garden center.

Busy Beaver was founded in 1962 with lumber yards in Verona, Clairton and Carnegie. Today, the company operates 24 stores with more than 550 employees.

Anyone interested in applying for a job can visit BusyBeaver.com/careers.

S&P Global Ratings downgraded AMC Entertainment Holdings’ issuer credit rating to CCC- in April, citing theater closures due to the coronavirus pandemic.

CCC- describes a company that is “currently vulnerable, and is dependent upon favorable business, financial and economic conditions to meet its financial commitments,” according to S&P’s rating system.

This week, however, the company announced that about 140 of its theaters will reopen on Thursday, with the required health and safety guidelines in place. That brings the total to 420, 70% of AMC’s total locations.

The Salem location closed earlier this summer.