After nearly a decade of grassroots efforts to fight blight, promote business growth, and attract new residents, Lawrenceville now faces its biggest challenge: the opening of the new Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in the heart of the neighborhood.

Spadework by Lawrenceville Corporation has already attracted 70 new design-related businesses to the 16:62 Design Zone, and Lawrenceville United has enlisted residents and business owners to cut upper Lawrenceville’s crime in half. The new hospital, to open in 2009, will bring 3,000 staffers to Penn Avenue near Main Street. The ten-acre complex has the potential to transform the business district there, as well as the neighborhood’s Butler Street corridor.

Since 2001, PPND has helped the Lawrenceville Corporation grow its capacity and capital by providing annual operating support for its comprehensive five-year business plan. It introduced PPND to Lawrenceville United, a citizens’ group that had taken the lead on crime-prevention efforts. In 2005, PPND gave Lawrenceville United a Small & Simple grant to expand its capacity. Additional PPND grants for business planning and operating support followed.

With that help, the group gained strength to defend the neighborhood, growing from 300 to 600 members. Now, a stronger cleaner neighborhood is reversing perceptions and preparing to seize market opportunities. With ongoing operating support from PPND, the Lawrenceville Corporation has created an online marketing program to apprise investors of neighborhood properties and has developed plans to improve traffic and parking.