After nearly 50 years of family ownership, the South Hills Shopping Center — a longtime hub of the Bridge Road shopping district — has been sold to new owners with deep ties to the community.
Dr. Mitchell and Kamilla Rashid, along with business partners Marty and Theresa Johnson, purchased the property Monday from longtime owners South Hills Properties and Rubin Brothers LLC.
Legacy
The Rubin family built the two-story shopping center 50 years ago and used the ground floor to house a drug store owned by the Cohens. The second floor was rented to other tenants. Cohen Drugs was eventually bought out by Rite Aid and relocated nearby. There are about a dozen tenants in the building now.
Steve Rubin, the managing partner of South Hills Shopping Center and Rubin Brothers LLC, was a child when his father Dan Rubin and his uncles Stan and Sam Rubin built the shopping center.
"It was in the early 70s when I came up here and rode a bulldozer around ... when we were developing it," Rubin said.
When the property was first constructed, South Hills was still a developing neighborhood. Rubin said Cohen Drugs was a successful drug store at the time with several locations in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, including on Summers and Elizabeth streets. The South Hills neighborhood, according to Rubin, was a strategic location for the business to expand.Ìý
"When Cohen [Drugs]Â moved out, we developed all these individual stores, and it really became the premier shopping area," Rubin said.Ìý
The current tenants provide a wide range of services from shopping and dining to Pilates and dental care.
Rubin said he hopes the new owners will maintain relationships with the current tenants and the surrounding community.Ìý
"I feel strongly that they will," Rubin said regarding the new owners.
Mitchell Rashid, a cardiologist at ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Area Medical Center and owner of multiple properties in Kanawha City, said the decision to invest with his wife and other business partners was shaped by years of firsthand experience with the property and the community around it.
"I thought it was a great investment as a rental property," Rashid said. "And [I] just had intimate knowledge of the property because I grew up in South Hills and was on the property essentially all my life."
Rashid owns many rental properties in Kanawha City as well as the Riverview Medical Plaza at 4610 Kanawha Ave. SW. He started his real estate company in 2008.
Once the ink dried on the deal, the focus shifted to building relationships with tenants and managing the property.
"We're in the middle of getting everything transitioned over," Rashid said. "The utilities, the properties, getting to know the new tenants and reaching out to them and making those initial relationships and reassuring them that we want long-term relationships with all the tenants."
The end of one chapter, the start of another
Rubin, who in 2020 and early 2021 served as interim president and CEO of the ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Area Alliance and ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Regional Chamber of Commerce, said in a news release that he is confident the new owners will "build upon the strong foundation [the Rubins and Cohens] laid," but the sale is "bittersweet."
With no one left in either the Cohen and Rubin families to carry on South Hills Properties and Rubin Brothers LLC, the company has been selling many of their long-standing properties.Ìý
“My children have other interests," Rubin said. "We have other family members here, but there’s nobody else who’s involved in the business but myself. So I’m kind of the last person standing.â€
After 50 years of legacy, the torch has been passed, but Rubin still maintains his love for the South Hill community.
"It’s really been a pleasure and an honor to be part of this community and to become friends and family with the people here," Rubin said. "[The shops] are all locally owned, no chains — all very much involved in the community and wanting to serve the community and make it better."
