Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development

South Side

An unused industrial site has been transformed along Centre Avenue where East Side attracts hundreds of thousands of customers each month. With 117,000 square feet of busy new retail space, anchored by organic grocer Whole Foods, the developer plans another 300,000 square feet of retail to follow.

East Liberty

PPND AT WORK:
EAST LIBERTY

  • In 2003, ELDI received a $167,000 strategic impact grant from PPND to acquire and “mothball” thirty abandoned houses in order to manage their transfer to responsible owners. The grant allowed the group to execute a residential development strategy that helped fill in individual blocks. In 2004, PPND awarded $40,000 to continue residential momentum.
  • To highlight East Liberty’s nineteenth-century core and create tax incentives, PPND funded an architectural analysis of the district. ELDI will use the report to apply for designation as a National Historic District.
  • To help promote Community organizing and “greening” projects, like energy-efficiency and tree planting, PPND made $25,000 grants to turn part-time workers into full-time staff.
  • PPND partner LISC played a major role in bringing Whole Foods to town by loaning $2 million (with funds from Nationwide and PNC Bank) to Mosites Company, the project’s developer, and making a $375,000 recoverable grant to East Liberty Development Inc.

For East Liberty, 1999 was bootstrap time. Seeking to reverse the loss of over one million square feet of commercial space and four decades of decline and blight, the community devised a plan for jobs, housing, and retail around the historic shopping district. PPND provided steadfast operating support for East Liberty Development, Inc. (ELDI) as it mapped a strategy.

With the plan in place, ELDI seized a unique opportunity. A corporate developer, Mosites Company, proposed bringing organic grocer Whole Foods to Centre Avenue. Backed by PPND and other partners, ELDI took a calculated risk to invest in the project. A forlorn industrial stretch of Centre Avenue boomed, prompting a second development with other national retailers such as Borders and Walgreens. National retailers inspired local entrepreneurs, and a handful of restaurants and small shops opened their doors in adjacent Penn Circle storefronts. The return on ELDI’s investment helped the organization double in size, generate revenues to implement a larger community plan, and acquire properties for future development.

PPND also supported the innovative East End Growth Fund, a pool of pre-development funds from local foundations, banks and non-profits. The Fund allowed ELDI to assemble development sites, set design guidelines, and match developments to community goals. Among those goals was significant investment in local housing. The community abolished blighted high-rise residential towers and rerouted traffic patterns to create affordable housing on historic street grids. More than 350 families now live in new townhomes and garden apartment rental units, and new and rehabbed single-family homes have reclaimed blighted lots. In 2008, the community announced future plans for a new “green” development: Mellon’s Orchard South, featuring 80 single-family homes and townhomes, which generate heat from geothermal tanks under a revitalized Garland Park.