Completed in 1969 by Oxford Development Company, the mall was extensively renovated and expanded between 2003 and 2004, and features the traditional retailers Barnes & Noble, Dick's Sporting Goods, JCPenney, and Macy's in addition to a Cinemark Theatres.

Several major shopping centers, including the Miracle Mile Shopping Center, national retailers and restaurants can be found along the U.S. Route 22 commercial corridor, adjacent to the Monroeville Mall, creating the biggest such concentration of retailers and other commercial businesses in the eastern environs of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area.

Less famously so, it is the implied setting for My Chemical Romance's Early Sunsets Over Monroeville, that takes inspiration from Dawn of the Dead.

During the mid-1960s, Don-Mark Realty (later Oxford Development Company) proposed building the largest shopping mall in the United States, and acquired a 280-acre (1.1 km2) tract of land known as Harper's Mine.

More than 5,000,000 cubic yards (3,800,000 m3) of dirt was moved to level the 110-acre (0.45 km2) portion of the 280-acre (1.1 km2) site, with excavation costs totaling $2.5 million at the time.

[4] On Tuesday, May 13, 1969, the 1,130,000-square-foot (105,000 m2) Monroeville Mall opened its doors with Gimbels and Joseph Horne Co. at opposite ends and JCPenney in the middle.

The Gimbels court of the mall featured a large yellow clock tower that housed 12 animated puppets, each one representing an ethnic group in the Pittsburgh area.

Outparcels such as a movie theater, a Marriott hotel, a freestanding Montgomery Ward store, and a number of retailers, auto service centers and restaurants were subsequently built during the 1970s.

The A&P closed in 1992, and was replaced by a Burlington Coat Factory in 1993, Dick's Sporting Goods in 1995, OfficeMax in 1998, and LensCrafters eye shop in the fall of 1987.

In 2009, the ExpoMart was converted into office space and a smaller convention center opened along Mall Boulevard in a renovated former Wickes Furniture store.

The largest renovation and expansion project ever at Monroeville Mall was completed in 2003–2004, when CBL & Associates Properties purchased it.

On March 5, 2015, CBL & Associates Properties officials announced their continued commitment to Monroeville Mall with a multimillion-dollar renovation project slated to begin later that month.

[8]" This project is designed to "focus on offering shoppers a welcoming, vibrant destination to shop, dine and spend time with family and friends."

Walmart spokesperson Mark Rickel stated at that time that it was too early to reveal any future plans for the property.

The Monroeville Mall's original anchor tenants at its opening in May 1969 were the Pittsburgh-based Joseph Horne Company, Gimbels, and JCPenney (then Penney's).

The Monroeville Mall location was closed, completely renovated and expanded into the building's unused third floor, before reopening as Kaufmann's.

The Joseph Horne Company, owned by the New York City-based Associated Dry Goods Corporation, operated in Monroeville Mall until 1994.

In 2005, Federated eventually merged all its divisions (including the former Joseph Horne/Lazarus locations) into Macy's as part of a nationwide rebranding program.