Lawrenceville
Revitalizes Shopping With 16:62 Design Zone
 When
asked to describe the changes that she has witnessed
in her neighborhood, Joanne Yalch, a 12-year resident
of Lawrenceville, shares this anecdote about her neighborhood's
business district.
“About 10
years ago, an advertising sales rep came to the restaurant
where I worked, with an interest in putting together
a special ad highlighting holiday shopping on Butler
Street,” she says with a chuckle. “We laughed—and
told her that unless you wanted to buy someone a pizza,
a carton of cigarettes, or a six-pack, you couldn't
do any Christmas shopping here.”
Vacant buildings and small trickles
of customer traffic were the realities of the business
district in the post-industrial neighborhood of Lawrenceville.
Although the adjacent neighborhood of the Strip District
had gained a following as a regional ethnic food and
nightlife district, the prosperity hadn't worked
its way up the Allegheny River to neighboring Lawrenceville.
 Seeking
a plan for renewal, the Lawrenceville Corporation examined
its existing assets. Noteworthy architecture, low commercial
lease rates, inexpensive housing, and a strong sense
of creative community had attracted a sizable number
of design-related businesses and home-based artists
to the neighborhood. A new neighborhood economy had
slowly coalesced throughout the late 1990s, but was
largely unrecognized by customers from outside the neighborhood.
Combining grassroots business organizing
with operating and programming support from PPND, the
Lawrenceville Corporation launched the 16:62
Design Zone initiative in December 2000. The program
employs a niche marketing strategy to promote the  cluster
of home and workplace design/decor businesses of the
Strip District and Lawrenceville. The district takes
its name from the 16th Street and 62nd Street Bridges
that serve as its bookends.
The marketing campaign's centerpiece
is a guidebook
that includes district maps and detailed descriptions
of the participating businesses. It has grown to include
a website
and a weekly e-newsletter
to notify the public of the Zone's business and
cultural activities. Since the program's launch,
more than 30 new businesses have moved into the district,
and customers are arriving from around the region—or
crossing state lines from Cleveland—with guidebooks
in hand for an afternoon of urban exploration. Buildings
once vacant now feature renovated facades as beautiful
as the wares inside, and new restaurants are opening
to serve the residential and visitor markets.
 This
cluster of creativity has inspired talented residents
to join in on the growth, including Joanne Yalch. She
started making jewelry about five years ago as a way
to express her artistic side. Encouraged by her husband
and validated by strong sales of her jewelry in the
neighborhood's galleries, she launched her own
business. In 2003, she opened Crystal Bead Bazaar, where
she sells beads and supplies and teaches classes in
jewelrymaking.
“This kind of business wouldn't
work in a suburban strip mall,” she says. “We
lacked a bead shop in this area, and with the other
shops and galleries here on Butler Street and the 16:62
Design Zone program here…I couldn't
think of a better fit.”
 “Customers
from the more affluent suburbs tell me that they keep
hearing that good things are happening here,”
says Yalch. “I'm glad that I can point them
to other shops, restaurants, and places to visit—you
couldn't do that a few years ago. Now you can
do all of your holiday shopping on Butler Street.”
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