Category Archive: Neighborhood Development
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URA Moves to Subsidize Several Developments in Pittsburgh
Friday, July 09, 2010Pittsburgh Post-GazetteThe city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority board Thursday made early moves to subsidize developments in the Strip District, Squirrel Hill and the South Side and sold properties to make way for an expanded YMCA in the Hill District.
The subsidies it preliminarily approved were tax increment financing (TIF) plans to support building public infrastructure at: a mixed-use, commercial and residential redevelopment of the lower Strip District between 11th and 21st streets, near the URA-owned Produce Terminal; and a third phase of redevelopment of the former Nine Mile Run slag heap into housing units at the Summerset at Frick Park, extending the development site toward Swisshelm Park. No development costs, designs or timetables were released for either project, as they are still in early planning stages and the board’s action was merely the first of many moves necessary to approve the tax subsidies.
The URA board also approved extending a TIF plan originally approved in 1999 for the SouthSide Works, expanding the money available for infrastructure from $25 million to $35 million, in order to help pay for a new parking garage at the former brownfield site and new riverfront park improvements. Like the other TIF measures, it also needs approvals by the city’s three local taxing bodies — the city, the county and Pittsburgh Public Schools.
The YMCA plans to break ground by September for the expansion of its athletic facilities on Centre Avenue, with the help of 18 adjacent lots controlled by the URA. The expanded building — with the goal of being finished by the end of 2011 — would include an indoor swimming pool, gymnasium, health center, computer lab and other facilities.
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Allegheny County Communities Examine Benefits of Recycling More
By Daveen Rae Kurutz
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Talkin trash. Ross officials are kicking off a recycling campaign to encourage residents to be more recycle friendly. Residents on Jefferson Street in the North Hills Estates are taking part in the recycling efforts. Samantha Cuddy | Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Communities across Allegheny County are lightening their loads.
Instead of throwing away such items as newspapers and plastic bottles, more residents are recycling them.
Mt. Lebanon is recycling at nearly double the rate of just two years ago.
“There are so many environmental benefits. It makes sense to recycle,” said Larry Holley, manager of the Division of Waste Minimization and Planning with the state Department of Environmental Protection. In Pennsylvania, the “green” benefits extend beyond the environment.
DEP reimburses municipalities for what they recycle — disbursing nearly $35 million last year, Holley said.
Mt. Lebanon officials sold their constituents on recycling by making it easier for them to do. Last year, the township began allowing residents to toss all recyclables in one bin. Tom Kelley, director of public works, said Waste Management has collected 1,056 tons of recyclables so far this year – an 88 percent increase from the same time in 2008.
“It’s an easy program, and people like that,” Kelley said. “When you make things easy for people, they’re going to participate.”
Last month, Ross agreed to a one-year contract extension with Waste Management.
Mike Christ, municipal coordinator for the company, told township officials that they could double the amount of materials recycled if they increased awareness of what can be recycled.
“People don’t realize how much can be recycled,” Christ said. “They still think newspapers can’t be thrown in there.”
A heavy load
Pennsylvanians recycle about 5.2 million tons of garbage each year, according to the DEP.
The 5.2 million tons of recyclables saved 55,500 acres of standing forest and reduced greenhouse-gas emissions equal to removing 1.4 million vehicles from the roads, Holley said. He estimates that nearly 80 percent of all Pennsylvanians have access to some sort of recycling program.
Ross Commissioner Pete Ferraro said he believes recycling could help the township with its budget problems.
In December, Ross officials passed a 2010 budget that includes $1.3 million worth of cuts. Ferraro said he wants to at least double the township’s recycling reimbursement from the state – which totaled more than $22,000 last year.
“If we can raise $25,000 above and beyond our normal revenues, that’s a police car for us,” Ferraro said. “It’s worthwhile for our residents to recycle.”
In Robinson, the township began offering residents the opportunity to put all their recyclables in one bin this year. Township Manager Aaron Bibro said he receives several calls each month about recycling and believes that residents are catching on.
“The township just wants to do its part in creating a green community,” he said.
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South Park Middle School Outdoor Classroom to Serve Double Duty
Thursday, July 08, 2010Howard Anderson said his smelly, sometimes boisterous lesson plans don’t do anything for his popularity in the teachers lounge at South Park Middle School.
“We’re dissecting fish and the room stinks or we’re making bottle rockets,” the fifth-grade science teacher said last week as he and a small crew of laborers worked to assemble the wooden structure for an outdoor classroom that he hopes will double as a memorial garden..
Mr. Anderson said he began mulling the concept in May 2009, three months after his friend and fellow science teacher, Marilyn Walsh, died from pancreatic cancer. He said he wanted to honor Mrs. Walsh by creating a lasting memorial combining two of her favorite things: teaching and tiger lilies.
His vision turned into a pet project after he helped secure a $5,000 grant from Lowe’s and a contribution from Consol Energy to fund the facility, which will be located behind the middle school.
But Mr. Anderson said that while he was thankful for the funding, a few thousand dollars doesn’t go far when it comes to building a 20-by-20-foot structure with an asphalt floor and gabled roof.
In fact, he said the project may have faltered without Stephen Bornyas, owner-operator of Bornyas Residential Construction of Boston, who offered to complete the structure for what Mr. Anderson said was a significantly reduced rate.
Mr. Anderson said he reached out to Mr. Bornyas after Internet research led him to a story about the company building a similar outdoor classroom at Elizabeth Forward School District.
Mr. Bornya said he expected the project to take two days for his crew to complete. Gabe Gehenio of Gabriels Excavation also worked at a reduced rate to help.
Once the structure is finished, phase two — installation of a garden hugging the perimeter of the outdoor classroom — will begin.
Mr. Anderson said that he hopes the outdoor classroom will help other teachers add flexibility to their lesson plans and that the space will be used for instruction, as well as a quiet place for members of the community to eat lunch or quietly reflect.
But he was clear: The outdoor classroom is an evolving science project in its own right.
“I don’t want it to end,” he said. “I want it to get bigger and better and improve every year.”
And he said anytime his dedication wavered, he thought of what Mrs. Walsh would have done.
“She inspired me because she came to school sick and she came tired,” Mr. Anderson said, adding that even when the teacher was in the hospital she called to see how her students had fared on their standardized tests.
Mr. Anderson said the memory of Mrs. Walsh has also inspired him to create a horticultural club at the middle school, which will help interested youngsters learn more about the art of cultivating flowers while also ensuring the garden is maintained.
He added that he will be looking for funding to add an alternative energy source. Mr. Anderson said one day he would like to incorporate solar panels or a wind turbine, which would complement both the facility itself, as well as its capacity for educational enrichment.
But until then, he said he looks forward to fall, when he’ll be able to test drive the new classroom.
Anything that smells pretty awful or that concentrates on fire tends to work better outdoors, anyway, Mr. Anderson said.
Middle school principal Kevin Monaghan lauded the project and Mr. Anderson for his creativity at a time when students standardized test scores are often the focus.
“It makes lessons more relative to the students,” Mr. Monaghan said. “Something like this makes all the difference.”
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Cities, Including Pittsburgh, Are Turning Green With Urban Farms
Thursday, July 08, 2010By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette --- Jaymon McGhee, 13, plants mustard greens in a raised bed as part of the Lots of Hope gardening project.
The urban farm — a novel, even whimsical, idea a few years ago in Pittsburgh — is now a movement so fully fledged that a neighborhood without one seems almost an anomaly.
Nationally, the movement is profuse, with seeds in the 1980s when foodies sprouted and gourmet eating went mainstream. The roots of several movements have intertwined since: urban enterprise farms, urban farms for educating children, community gardens, vacant lot greening, soil remediation of industrial landscapes, community supported agriculture, backyard chickens and bee hives, consumers who buy into livestock with farmers and grocery chains selling local produce.
Grow Pittsburgh, whose mission is to support urban gardening, is a 5-year-old nonprofit that can’t keep tabs on the number of gardens being planted in the city’s public spaces, said Julie Butcher Pezzino, executive director.
Grow Pittsburgh is a partner of groups operating gardens in Braddock, Lawrenceville, Larimer and Lemington. It is searching for a suitable plot Uptown and has Troy Hill and Hazelwood on schedule for next year.
An online search of terms such as “urban farm,” “sustainable food” and “buy local” shows how robust the movement is in other cities. Interest here has skyrocketed.
Grow Pittsburgh’s latest foray is to widen its scope. It is working with Allegheny County and the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in a pilot program to encourage gardening partnerships outside the city. It is currently developing projects in Millvale and McKees Rocks.
Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette --- Jayda Harden, 14, left, with Mark Williams, center, and Brandon Kenney, 14, plant tomatoes in a raised bed for the Lots of Hope gardening project at The Pittsburgh Project on the North Side.
It has also collaborated with McAuley Ministries, the granting arm of Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, GTECH Strategies, the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, the A. Randolph Institute and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank to create the Francis Street Community Garden and Urban Farm Project on approximately 1 1/2 acres at Bedford Avenue and Francis Street in the Hill District.
McAuley Ministries granted $37,580 to the project. Produce from that garden will be sold to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank for distribution through a farmers market and farm stands located at the Hill House and Addison Terrace.
“In the last two or three years, we have gotten calls upon calls from people asking for help and technical assistance” in starting a community farm, said Ms. Butcher Pezzino. “We are still developing our policies” on partnership standards. “It’s new for us to be helping so many groups.
“One of our goals is to start trying to document and find where all the places are” that have not relied on Grow Pittsburgh’s help. “I’ve gotten calls from people asking if we are partners in gardens that I have never heard of.”
A lot of things happened last year to help the momentum nationally:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” campaign kicked into gear last summer, giving USDA employees the directive to consider starting their own gardens.
First Lady Michelle Obama planted a kitchen garden at the White House.
The movie “Food Inc.” opened a lot of eyes to the ways and means of corporate food agriculture.
The movement is further bolstered by occasional recalls and reports of tainting.
Among the oldest and most successful urban agriculture projects are the Food Project in Massachusetts, which started in 1992 and has mushroomed to include numerous acres throughout the Boston area, including inner-city Roxbury. It has 25 full-time staff, employs 100 youth and attracts 2,000 volunteers each year. It sells and donates more than 250,000 pounds of food each season. It is also a source of food for community-supported agriculture, or CSA, subscribers.
Will Allen’s Growing Power Inc., founded in 1995 in Milwaukee, was recently hailed at the Women’s Health & the Environment Conference in Pittsburgh. Growing Power has become a national advocate that trains and offers technical support to communities in growing food and selling it.
Urban Farming, a Detroit nonprofit, grew from a pilot of three gardens in 2005 to 600 gardens across the country today. Its mission is to take over vacant space, grow food and give it away to people who live nearby.
Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette --- Ceasia Williams, 14, left, and Jayda Harden, 14, water newly planted seedlings in a raised bed for the Lots of Hope gardening project at The Pittsburgh Project on the North Side.
Braddock Farms was not the area’s first big garden on public land when Grow Pittsburgh established it in 2007, but it set a standard for what “urban farm” means locally. On three-quarters of an acre, it may be the largest nonprofit farm in Allegheny County and is the leading “enterprise” farm. A dozen area restaurants buy produce from it.
“We have developed a market base within the high-end restaurant community for our produce from there,” said Ms. Butcher Pezzino, “but it is not yet sustaining itself.”
The Pittsburgh Project in Perry South has expanded the size and scope of a teaching garden for its summer youth over three years. The Lots of Hope project not only broadens children’s understanding of food and nutrition, it also teaches them how to run a small business — a farm stand — and the value of supplying food to their neighborhood.
“We started the farm as a food access initiative,” said Jonathan Young, an AmeriCorps worker. The neighborhood is hilly and lacks a grocery people can walk to. The Project last year got the city’s permission to farm on an abandoned baseball field near its Charles Street campus. It will expand its Thursday farmers market and deliver what it doesn’t sell to the elderly in nearby high-rises.
The Thursday farmers market season at the Project began June 10; the hours are 2 to 6 p.m.
Last year, Mr. Young said, the farm stand made enough to cover its costs; infusions of food from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank help during lean growing times.
“My hope this year is that 30 percent of the operating budget is covered by revenues from our farm stand,” he said. The Project has its first commercial buyer of produce — Bistro to Go on East Ohio Street in Deutschtown, which is also sharing its organic waste so the Project can accumulate compost.
“These are exciting times,” said Mr. Young.
Grow Pittsburgh’s sites include the Larimer Farm and Gardens, a quarter acre at Larimer Avenue and Mayflower Street; Lawrenceville Gardens at Allegheny Cemetery, about 150 square feet; and a garden the size of four city lots on Lincoln Avenue in Lemington called Higher Ground Community Garden.
The Larimer site got grant funding so Grow Pittsburgh could hire a part-time manager, said Ms. Butcher Pezzino, “someone who is there 20 hours a week and can keep it looking good. That could be an awesome model.”
Larimer’s site is a community garden and a farming effort of the Larimer Green Team.
“They’re calling it a farming garden” with hopes of becoming vendors, “but the market is still being tested” as to how much an enterprise garden can make above its expenses, she said.
Interest from residents who want plots shot up from seven requests last year to 20 this year, she said.
Ebony Earth started the Higher Ground garden with Grow Pittsburgh’s help in 2007 as a green hobby, she said. “The whole point was to get the community living a healthier lifestyle.” She has been giving the produce to neighbors but said she might look for a commercial outlet and offer plots for neighbors to grow their own food. She and the other volunteers who garden the lots have been supported by the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s farm-stand program, which offers help, supplies and produce when the farm stand is low on inventory.
All of these gardening projects focus on making fresh local produce affordable to the people who have the least access to it.
“Whole Foods could be in this neighborhood and it wouldn’t matter,” said Mr. Young. “If it’s not an effort like ours, our neighbors can’t afford to eat well.”
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Owner of North Side Barbecue Shop Hits Golden Milestone
Saturday, July 03, 2010By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
J. Monroe Butler II/Post-Gazette George Wilson, left, owner of Wilson's Bar B-Q on the Central North Side, waits on customers Rick Weaver, center, and Romir Miller on Thursday. Wilson's has been in business for 50 years.
The corner of North Taylor Avenue and Buena Vista Street has been salivation central for much of the 50 years George Wilson has been in business.
Aromas from Wilson’s Bar B-Q in the Central North Side waft in every direction for at least a block, making the inside of the mouth do that tweaky thing that has less to do with hunger than with imagination. Inside, Mr. Wilson, 82, turns slabs of ribs and half and whole chickens on the grate of a 4-by-8-foot pit.
Mr. Wilson is recognizing this year as his 50th anniversary because 1960 was when he decided to go, as he puts it, “legit.” In the 10 years before he was a backyard entrepreneur.
“I lived on Columbus Avenue [in Manchester] and I used to make ribs on Fridays and Saturdays for my family,” he said. “People started coming in and sitting at our tables and chairs. I thought, ‘They’re going to put me in business.’
“I don’t know any barbecue man who started in business without starting in the backyard.”
He closes the blackened iron doors of the pit and disappears into the back to get more wood.
Mr. Wilson, a native of Louisiana, learned by watching his great-grandfather. “He was an ex-slave and when I looked up at him, he looked like a tree. He was a good cook. He and my grandfather would get on a bus and get off at a good place and get an old tub and some chicken wire and set up shop,” he said.
Their itinerant business included a secret sauce.
“It was easy for me to go into this business,” he said.
He trained as a butcher in Little Rock, where he went to high school, and came north with his family when his father got a job in the shipbuilding industry here.
Mr. Wilson worked for 22 years as “a meat fabricator” for the Armour Packaging Co. under the 31st Street Bridge. “That means I knew how to grade meat,” he said. “When I got wind that Armour might be laying off, I decided to start my own business.”
Mr. Wilson’s nephew runs errands for him and “a few elderly ladies help out sometimes,” he said, but his is a one-man show with a set that’s frozen in time. Style? Utilitarian: bare walls, linoleum floor tiles and discolored menus.
The only customer amenities are a big electric fan on the counter, three resin tables and six chairs that look like they were in a doctor’s waiting room in the ’70s.
He said 99 percent of his customers order takeout. Ribs are the headliner, but he also sells chicken, peppered collard greens, macaroni and cheese, potato salad and cole slaw.
“It has been 50 very good years,” he said. “I’ve got the neighbors and people who come in from all over.” Hours are from noon to 8 p.m. every day but Sunday, although he will be open on the Fourth of July.
Rob Slick came through the door for the first time in 1971. He had just moved to the neighborhood. On Thursday morning, he entered the joint to place an order. Mr. Wilson, a genial man whose smile starts modest and spreads out, came out from behind the refrigerator case to greet him.
“I have guests coming for dinner and need four large plates,” Mr. Slick said.
A whole slab is $20.65. A large plate of six ribs is $10.70. “A hog’s anatomy carries 14 ribs,” said Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson was preparing eight whole slabs and five whole chickens for a customer driving from West Virginia when Cynthia Ford walked in for her order Thursday.
“We’re brand new customers” on the recommendation of a friend, she said. Mr. Wilson carried aluminum containers to her car — lunch for a safety training meeting at NRG, a heating and cooling company in Allegheny Center where Ms. Ford is the administrative assistant. “We don’t usually eat this well at safety meeting lunches,” she said.
Wilson’s Bar B-Q first opened in May 1960 at Pennsylvania and Allegheny avenues in Manchester. Ten years later, Mr. Wilson moved the business and himself several blocks east to North Taylor. He lives upstairs.
“Makes it real easy,” he said, “and I can stay on top of things.”
He had a Lawrenceville location for a few years but closed it “I don’t remember when” because his son “didn’t want to be a barbecue man,” he said.
He is apprenticing his daughter to take over the business and by October, he said, he hopes to … “now I’m not saying retirement. Just slowing down. But I told her I’ll be around to help.
“She’s still got a ways to go with the sauce.”
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A Newsmaker You Should Know: Historical Society Chief Links Past to Present
Thursday, July 08, 2010Marilyn Albitz barely passed high school history — a close call she attributes to a teacher who she said wanted her students only to memorize dates.
“I was an A student, but [historical] dates always turned me off. Rather, I’ve always liked to hear stories about the people, what they did, where they came from,” Ms. Albitz recalled.
MARILYN ALBITZAGE: “I’m a senior citizen, that’s all I’ll admit.”
OCCUPATION: Community volunteer
EDUCATION: Dormont High School
FAMILY: Husband, Robert; three children; seven grandchildren
WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU? “My family and my borough’s history.”
PEOPLE WOULD BE SURPRISED TO KNOW: “I was once very shy. Now all I do is talk.”
FIRST JOB: Office supervisor at Prudential Insurance
HOBBIES: Reading and traveling
READING MATERIAL ON YOUR NIGHTSTAND: Romance novels and trivia books
WHAT’S PLAYING ON YOUR TV: “The Mentalist,” “The Good Wife,” “NCIS: Los Angeles,” “Jeopardy!”
GUILTY PLEASURE: Chocolate candy
FAVORITE SPOT IN THE WORLD: Green Tree. “There’s no place like here.”
MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT: “I’m sure there have been plenty, but I can’t think of any to share now.”
PROUDEST MOMENT SO FAR: “I’m proud of my family. And I was very proud being invited to Harrisburg.”
Now, as Green Tree Historical Society president, she is learning history the way she likes it: stories of the people who have lived in her community and the surrounding area.
“People influence other people. Our history is like a puzzle, and with each story, you get another piece,” she said.
Ms. Albitz credits former Green Tree librarian Roberta Antin as her greatest influence.
“She took me under her wing,” Ms. Albitz said. “She was our historian before we had the historical society. She collected stories, photos, newspapers, everything she could.”
Ms. Albitz started Green Tree’s historical society 25 years ago and has since helped other local communities start theirs, including Brentwood, Carnegie, Crafton, Dormont, Ingram, Mt. Lebanon and Reserve.
“I’d just take a folder of information and go talk to people about what we do and how we did it,” she said.
She wanted to help other communities start their historical societies for the same reason she wanted to start Green Tree’s.
“It’s important for you to know what your community is and was and where it’s going,” she said. “It’s important to collect more than Green Tree’s history because all these communities were once connected.”
State Rep. Matt Smith, D-Mt. Lebanon, hosted Ms. Albitz in Harrisburg last month to recognize her efforts in organizing Green Tree’s 125th anniversary celebration.
“[Ms. Albitz] herself is a community treasure. She is truly the kind of person that makes Green Tree and surrounding communities so special,” he said.
Mr. Smith was a history major at Rollins College and said there was “a huge advantage to preserving each community’s heritage. [Ms. Albitz] does a great job preserving that history.”
But talking to groups interested in forming their own historical society wasn’t easy for Ms. Albitz decades ago.
“I was so shy,” she said. “I took a public speaking class at the community college to help me get past that.”
During the class, she learned a lesson that she still relies on today.
“Just be yourself. You know more about what you’re talking about than the people you’re telling it to,” she said.
A lot of people have benefited from the information Ms. Albitz has shared and she’s been “very valuable to the community,” according to Dave Montz, Green Tree manager.
“People have been able to trace their roots, and she’s worked with children, too. They’ve learned where they live wasn’t always a traffic-congested, busy town. It was actually once farmland,” he said.
Ms. Albitz said she was a natural organizer growing up in Dormont with three brothers and one sister.
Later, she worked as an office supervisor for 13 years at Prudential Financial Inc. in Kennedy before starting a family. She has three children — David, Linda and Jeffrey — and seven grandchildren, ranging in age from 2 to 22.
As a mother, she served as a leader in the school’s Parent Faculty Organization.
In addition to her leadership in Green Tree’s historical society, she is president of the borough’s seniors’ club and belongs to its women’s club.
“People tell me I do too much and that I should learn to say ‘no.’ But you can’t say ‘no’ to stuff that interests you,” she said.
Reading is another of Ms. Albitz’s interests.
“I love romance novels. So many of them take place in different countries, and I love those settings. I skim over most of the romance. At my age, who cares?” she asked with a laugh.
Ms. Albitz does not disclose her age but did offer that she was married in 1953 to her husband, Robert, at St. Bernard Church in Mt. Lebanon.
“Compromise is the key,” she said of her nearly 60-year marriage. She also joked that it might help that she’s rarely home because of her work with social groups and traveling with the seniors’ club.
“I’m not home much, but I love to bake when I am,” she said.
Her favorite recipe is for her mother’s pumpkin pie, and she also likes to bake cookies.
“Grandma always has a can of cookies in her freezer,” she said.
She would spend more time baking if she had the time, she said, but there’s still too much to be done at the historical society.
“I’ve got to find someone to take this over after I’m gone,” she said. “I thought I’d retire this year, but I can’t. I’m still learning too many new stories.”
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Grants Available to Upgrade McDonald Historic Buildings
Thursday, July 08, 2010By Andrea IglarBev Schons, co-owner of the Pitt Hotel & Restaurant in McDonald, says it’s about time to install new windows in the century-old building, and she hopes the borough’s new facade improvement program will help.
Mrs. Schons plans to seek grant money for the South McDonald Street landmark, which is in the downtown historic district.
“We want to help improve McDonald,” she said.
Five owners of historic commercial properties attended an informational meeting last Thursday to learn about applying for storefront enhancement grants.
A second meeting will be held at 7 p.m. today in the municipal building, 151 School St.
Commercial buildings that front Lincoln Avenue or McDonald Street in the central historic district and are at least 75 years old may be considered for up to $7,500 in matching grants to help refurbish their storefronts and preserve original architectural features, said Tim Thomassy, head of McDonald council’s community development committee.
“Our big, historical buildings downtown are generally in good shape. They just need a little work to perk them up,” Mr. Thomassy said.
“You guys have to make the major contribution,” he told property owners. “But we want to try to help you as much as we can.”
Applications are due in the borough office by 4 p.m. July 15. A review committee will evaluate the entries, and awards will be announced during the Aug. 2 council meeting.
Dale Csonka plans to seek assistance for his circa-1920s West Lincoln Avenue building, the former G.C. Murphy store currently occupied by an arts cooperative.
He was concerned about having only three weeks to prepare and submit his application, but he was positive about the program.
“I’m very encouraged,” Mr. Csonka said. “I’ve been waiting a very long time for this. The town needed it.”
Matt Cochran, an owner of the century-old Cook and Shane buildings on South McDonald Street, said he is planning significant facade improvements and will apply for grant money to help.
“It will enable us to do more than we could financially feasibly do otherwise,” he said.
His buildings occupy the city block between the Pitt Hotel and O’Hara Street. Ground-level tenants include a pizza parlor, a tanning salon and an attorney’s office. Upper levels are designed for apartments.
McDonald’s $45,000 facade program is financed with $30,000 from Washington County’s share of gambling revenues, $13,000 from the borough and $2,000 from the McDonald Area Redevelopment Association, a nonprofit citizens group.
Attending last week’s meeting were representatives of borough council, McDonald Area Redevelopment Association, Redevelopment Authority of Washington County and the state Department of Community and Economic Development.
Mr. Thomassy said the facade work was part of an overall plan to stimulate business activity.
“We want [the work] to be in good taste, we want it to be well done, and we want it to fit into the original design of the building,” he said.
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Ambridge Redevelopment Receives $5 Million
Thursday, July 08, 2010By Brian David, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteDuring his first term, Gov. Ed Rendell visited Ambridge and pledged to support an ambitious redevelopment project in the town’s northern end.
With his second term winding to an end, the governor included $5 million toward the redevelopment in a $600 million list of capital projects he signed Wednesday at Connelley Technical School in Downtown Pittsburgh.
“He’s holding true to his word,” state Rep. Rob Matzie, D-Ambridge, said Wednesday. “This last appropriation in his term should help put the project over the hump.”
The $5 million requires a one-to-one match in local funds, Mr. Matzie said. “It’s not free money,” he said.
The Northern Ambridge Redevelopment Project is a public-private partnership inspired by Australian tycoon Rob Moltoni.
It already has established the New Economy Business Park, is in the process of straightening Merchant Street, has provided a new home for the Beaver County Emergency Services Center and is still clearing old industrial land for additional uses.
The project has received about $4 million in state funding over the years.
Overall, the project is a showpiece for the potential of public-private partnership, he said.
Without public help, it would have been impossible to clear the old industrial buildings from the project’s 22-square-block footprint; with it, the project is providing usable space in the heart of town adjacent to the historic district around Old Economy Village.
“It’s very important for the naysayers, the people who say government shouldn’t be involved,” Mr. Matzie said. “This shows that cleanup can occur, and you can revive your town.”