Mending mission
A hard-won grant to rejoin Hill and Downtown
There is no way to make the Hill District whole for the physical and psychological dislocation caused by construction of the Civic Arena. However, a federal grant providing a new connection to Downtown will help to improve the neighborhood’s future prospects.
Construction of the arena was among the many failed urban renewal projects of the 1950s and 1960s liberal social engineering that sought to paper over decay with gleaming new buildings. It disrupted the street grid linking the historic but troubled Hill District with Downtown. Thousands of homes and businesses in the Lower Hill, many of them owned by black residents, were demolished to make way for the arena, which was knocked down in 2011 and 2012 after construction of Consol Energy Center on the other side of Centre Avenue. Now, the Penguins are redeveloping the arena site, and Hill leaders have lobbied hard to make sure the community benefits from the influx of jobs and capital.
The $19 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, grant will provide most of the money necessary to build a 3-acre “cap” over Crosstown Boulevard, creating a park-like, pedestrianand bicyclist-friendly link between the Hill and Downtown. The cap will be bounded by Bigelow Square, Washington Place, Chatham Street and Centre Avenue, ending on the Downtown side within 655 feet of the Steel Plaza T station. Recognizing the importance of the project, a coalition of partners — including the city-Allegheny County Sports & Exhibition Authority, the Penguins and the Richard King Mellon and Hillman foundations — will provide the remaining $7.4 million.
This undertaking is possible largely because U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, spent years pursuing the money, refusing to put in other applications for super-competitive TIGER grants until the U.S. Department of Transportation approved this one and repeatedly seeking feedback from department officials on how to improve the proposal.
Because of this feedback, the proposal shifted from improving the street grid in the Lower Hill to constructing an appealing cap over Crosstown Boulevard. Mr. Doyle credited a team of officials — including Mayor Bill Peduto, county Executive Rich Fitzgerald, city Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle, state Rep. Jake Wheatley of the Hill District and state Sens. Jay Costa and Wayne Fontana — with helping to convince U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx that the project was not pork but truly needed.
City and regional leaders must remember the mistakes of the past, atone for them to the extent it is possible to do so and exercise better judgment in planning future projects. The commitment to reconnecting the Hill and Downtown shows that they are doing all three.