The comeback of East Carson Street, the heart of Pittsburgh’s steelworking South Side, is a success story 23 years in the making. Led by the South Side Local Development Company (South Side LDC), the neighborhood has added 250 new businesses, renovated 230 storefronts, and constructed over 100 new homes. On that foundation, market-rate housing and mixed-use development have flourished.

In 1985, the National Trust for Historic Preservation selected East Carson Street for its Main Street Urban Demonstration Program, with funds to revitalize an aging business district. The South Side LDC, a fledgling community development corporation supported by PPND, managed the Main Street program to restore century-old facades and jump-start businesses. A decade later, it achieved national recognition as a Great American Main Street.

After South Side LDC began building 70 homes along the river on the north side of Carson Street with public subsidies, private developers followed with 99 units of senior affordable housing and more than 550 units of market-rate housing. From 1996 to 2006, the median price of South Side homes appreciated at nearly three times the median rate of the city as a whole.

Thriving businesses on Carson Street spurred development of SouthSide Works, an award-winning private development on the site of the former Jones & Laughlin steel mill. Ongoing PPND operating support for the South Side LDC has kept neighbors involved in the 34-acre project. Community demands to connect the new development to the existing street grid and façade styles have produced a successful extension of the neighborhood into a regional shopping destination featuring national retailers.