Station Square is trading sex appeal for sports.

After nearly 16 years at the South Side complex, Hooters restaurant, known more for its scantily dressed waitresses than its menu, closed its doors for good Sunday after Station Square owner Forest City Enterprises decided not to renew its lease.

Forest City will replace Hooters with Field House, a sports bar. Thomas Schneck II, Station Square spokesman, said Field House will open next year, but he did not know when.

"It was our decision to replace [Hooters]," he said.

Jim Cornett, president of Cornett Hospitality, which operated the Station Square Hooters, said he wanted to keep the restaurant open until the end of the year but wasn't given that option by Forest City.

Hooters, with its busty waitresses clad in white tank tops and skimpy orange shorts, outlasted many of the other nightclubs and restaurants that have come and gone at Station Square over the years.

"We're pretty sad. I had a high level of anxiety about it," Mr. Cornett said of the closing. "We put our heart and soul into [the restaurant]."

Hooters was the oldest establishment in Station Square's east warehouse. After several off years, business picked up in 2008, Mr. Cornett said.

"Station Square is a festival location. It's what I call feast or famine. You're either really busy or really dead. We kind of like a location where we're busy all the time," he said.

Mr. Cornett said the cost of parking at Station Square was always an issue, even with the validations offered to diners. He said Forest City viewed parking as another "profit center."

"If you want to go somewhere for a quick lunch, you sure don't want to pay $5 [to park] for that 30 minutes you're going to stop and get a bite to eat," he said.

The closing leaves Hooters with only one restaurant in the area, in Wilkins. About 40 employees were affected by the shutdown. Some will move to the Wilkins location, while others "will pursue other things," Mr. Cornett said.

Field House, meanwhile, will try to succeed where two other sports bars, the Pittsburgh Sports Garden and Rod Woodson's All-Star Grille, failed.

Another east warehouse club, Margarita Mamas, closed earlier this year. Mr. Schneck said its owners are focusing their attention on two other east warehouse clubs, Saddle Ridge and the new Bar Room Pittsburgh.

A Starbucks coffee located in Station Square's Bessemer Court area also will be closing, although no date has been set. Forest City also is still trying to find a replacement for the Cheese Cellar, an original Station Square restaurant that closed in 2004.

Mr. Cornett said his company, which operates 10 Hooters in three states, is looking for another location in the region and "would love to be somewhere" near the northern end of Allegheny County.