Editor’s note: One-fourth of the way through this century, TribLive is looking ahead to the next 25 years, using the events of the past 25 as a roadmap of what possibly is to come. This installment of the occasional series looks at Pittsburgh.
Where mills once sat along the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood, a sprawling development now stands as a symbol of the shift from a steel town to a city built on education, medicine and technology.
Dubbed Hazelwood Green, the onetime brownfield is situated on 178 acres of riverside property. It will house Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Innovation Center and a biomanufacturing facility launched by the University of Pittsburgh.
As Pittsburgh embraces a new identity in the 21st century, one focused on innovation and technology, city leaders say that transformation has helped drive how development has looked in recent years — and what it will look like in the future.
Pittsburgh’s conversion from a smoky steel city to a cutting-edge tech hub, and its efforts to address inequities of the past, are driving development trends with a renewed focus on mixed-use sites and neighborhoods that welcome everyone, officials said.
Cities constantly evolve, responding to economic drivers, market pressures and calls for social justice. Developments have to respond to factors like the widespread shift to remote work in the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic and the desire for affordability so that low- and middle-income residents aren’t displaced.
“Cities are living, breathing things,” said Susheela Nemani- Stanger, executive director of Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority.
At the start of the century, the city struggled to retain population and forge a path after the collapse of the local steel industry, said Kyle Chintalapalli, the city’s chief economic development officer and chair of the URA board.
Around that time, the City of Champions built stadiums for the Steelers and Pirates. A new arena for the Penguins would follow about a decade later.
But what emerged as a key factor in development was the technology sector thriving in Pittsburgh.
“It was the turn of the page,” Mayor Ed Gainey told TribLive. “We were still trying to find who we are, what’s our identity coming out of the steel mills?”
The answer, he said, is clear now.
“We are a tech town,” he said. “There’s no question about it.”
Industry impact
The industries that drive local economies are one of the biggest factors that determine what’s built in a city, said Bill Generett, senior vice president of civic engagement at Duquesne University.
“Traditionally, our economic drivers were mainly based on manufacturing. In the last 25 years, we’ve really been able to turn a corner and diversify that,” he said. “It’s built now on health care, education, service industry companies.”
It’s that shift that has allowed developments like Hazelwood Green to flourish.
Areas that have evolved into technology hubs are attracting increased investment.
In Pittsburgh’s East End, Bakery Square — formerly a Nabisco factory — boasts retail, residential buildings and restaurants along with office space occupied, in part, by technology companies like Google.
Todd Reidbord, president of Walnut Capital, the site’s developer, said the work started in 2006, two years before the Great Recession. He initially envisioned Bakery Square as an expansion of the nearby Shadyside retail district. But retailers were hit hard by the recession, and development efforts had to shift gears.
Looking to capitalize on the technology companies seeking office space near Pittsburgh’s universities and the workers who would take those jobs, Bakery Square was born.
“We could’ve never anticipated what it is today,” Reidbord said.
Walnut Capital plans to continue expanding the site to meet the demand for mixed-use development in the East End. The expansion likely will focus less on offices, as the covid-19 pandemic spurred a widespread shift to remote work. But it will include more retail, hotel and residential space, reflecting growing demand for those amenities, Reidbord said.
East End ascendant
The entire East End is becoming increasing popular, said City Councilman Khari Mosley, D-Point Breeze.
“There’s definitely a lot more interest in a greater diversity of neighborhoods in the East End,” he said. “Neighborhoods that maybe hadn’t seen a lot of interest or development in the last three, four decades are seeing more interest in housing and commercial development across the board.”
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New housing, a medical facility and a restaurant are in the pipeline along Homewood Avenue, and businesses and startups are coalescing around the Penn Avenue corridor.
Developers want to build in areas that are in demand and easy to revitalize, said Duquesne’s Generett.
They tend to look for empty buildings that could be easily converted to retail or living space, neighborhoods with lots of usable land and sites that are already close to the amenities that would attract tenants.
Neighborhoods like Homewood, he said, tick all the boxes. That’s why Generett believes that area likely will see a building boom in the coming years.
New developments can create jobs, bring better housing options and amenities and spur an economic boost. But they also can displace existing residents.
In the East End, Generett said, many low-income residents have been priced out in recent decades. Empty buildings have been replaced with million-dollar homes. Rental costs soared.
Mosley said development has led to more affordable housing. Efforts are underway to pass legislation to protect longtime homeowners from major tax hikes when their property values skyrocket because of nearby construction.
Walnut Capital has vowed to help build and revitalize 100 affordable homes near Bakery Square.
Reimagining Downtown
Though experts and officials seem to agree the East End is likely to continue bustling, it’s not the only part of the city on the cusp of major changes. Downtown Pittsburgh is on the verge of a revitalization.
The covid-19 pandemic struck Downtown hard. Offices sat empty, building values plummeted and officials began crafting a new vision for the Central Business District.
Pre-pandemic, Downtown relied heavily on office space. It was one of the least diverse downtowns in the country, said City Council President R. Daniel Lavelle, D-Hill District.
Now, city leaders are teaming up with developers and other partners to reimagine Downtown as a truly mixed-use neighborhood with thousands more residents, new grocery stores, additional public spaces and a renewed focus on entertainment.
“We’re ensuring we’re building a Downtown for the future and not just bolstering what we have had in the past,” said city and URA official Chintalapalli.
A $600 million revitalization plan backed by Gov. Josh Shapiro calls for converting empty offices into affordable housing, improving public spaces like the Backyard and Point State Park and bringing to the Golden Triangle more street-level commercial space, restaurants and hotel rooms.
Hoping to complement Downtown is Esplanade, a massive project proposed for the North Side’s Chateau neighborhood that will include entertainment space, restaurants, shopping, housing, office space, a marina, a winter garden, a hotel and a giant Ferris wheel. Piatt Companies, the developer, hopes to break ground in the spring,
Another area that continues to thrive is the Strip District. Among the neighborhood’s biggest recent developments is The Terminal, a 163,500-square-foot produce terminal that Chicago-based McCaffery turned into a mix of dining spaces, fitness services, shops and offices.
At The Terminal, McCaffery has blended old with new. The developer wanted to keep the historic building — which opened in 1929 as the Pennsylvania Railroad Fruit Auction & Sales Building — largely intact while updating it to meet modern needs.
Most of the solid, roll-up doors have been replaced with storefront glass, Welch said, but much of the building retains its original floors and ceilings.
“For the most part, the building is really preserved in its original form,” said Dean Welch, McCaffery’s vice president of Pittsburgh operations. “You get a sense of what it was, maybe cleaned up with some paint.”
The Terminal followed a project that brought housing to The Cork Factory in the Strip District.
“It was a catalyst for the neighborhood,” Welch said.
Seeking balance
Elsewhere in the city, new construction has sought not to preserve the past but to right its wrongs.
Perhaps the most poignant example is in Pittsburgh’s Lower Hill District, where construction of the Civic Arena in the 1950s forced out the existing community.
Now, a major overhaul of the neighborhood is underway, with a focus on reinvesting in a community that decades ago was pushed aside for an arena.
The Pittsburgh Penguins gave part of the site back to Bethel AME Church, which was kicked out of its original location for the development. And the project will bring affordable housing and investments in community priorities, like New Granada Theater.
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“(We) can never fully make up for the mass displacement that occurred decades ago, but I do believe, given that government was at the core and the heart of that displacement, that government should be using all resources possible to rebuild the neighborhood,” Lavelle, the council president, said. “There is a very intentional effort to rebuild the Greater Hill District, given the harm that was done to it decades ago.”
A new Live Nation music venue, added office space and a public safety center are included in the plans.
Officials said it’s imperative to learn from mistakes while welcoming investments that could help attract residents and revenue to the city.
“It is a fine line,” the URA’s Nemani-Stanger said of weighing pros and cons of development.
A boom in Lawrenceville came at the cost of some long-term residents who could no longer afford to live there, said Dave Breingan, who heads Lawrenceville United and co-chairs the Housing Justice Table.
“That inequity, I think, is a really huge challenge for all of us to grapple with,” he said.
Moving forward, he said, the city needs to ensure developments don’t happen at the expense of longtime residents. Neighborhoods, he said, should include a blend of people of all walks of life.
Seeking the perfect mix
While Ferris wheels and music venues may be what most captures the public imagination, Nemani-Stanger said, the developments that will help build the city over the coming decades aren’t all large and flashy.
Equally important is new housing that welcomes people of all income levels and small businesses that anchor main streets.
Chintalapalli said it’s the mix of big, innovative developments and smaller, simpler ones that attract many to Pittsburgh.
It’s impossible to predict what the city will look like in the future, but current projects will help Pittsburgh bounce back from the pandemic, create more housing options, bolster tourism and transform neighborhoods.
“What we have in the pipeline right now (are) developments that can transform Downtown,” Gainey said. “It’s a reality that Esplanade will take off in the North Shore. The Lower Hill District is a reality — it will also shape the way we see our city. Those are visions that are coming right now.”