HILL HOUSE FUTURE DEBATED
Pamela Robinson listens to state Rep. Jake Wheatley on Monday during a community meeting to discuss the status of the Hill House Association. The meeting was held at the Hill House Kaufmann Center.
The Hill House Association, a nonprofit services provider beset with financial problems, could get more time to put its house in order.
About six weeks after the Hill District community was told of the association’s plans to sell four of its seven buildings for between $4 million and $6 million to stave off financial collapse, another meeting was held Monday night and established a different narrative: Community involvement over the long-term after short-term issues are addressed can result in a brighter future for
the association.
City Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle and state Rep. Jake Wheatley, D-Hill District, have been working to put the brakes on the sale, at least temporarily. Their effort has yielded a proposal from the Greater Hill District Development Growth Fund to provide a $600,000 infusion of cash so the association can operate for another four to six months. Mr. Wheatley said if no viable plan can be found to save the buildings, the growth fund could get some or all of its money back through the sale.
A meeting is planned with the Hill House board of directors sometime this week. Hill House representatives were not invited to Monday’s meeting at the association’s Kaufmann Center in the Hill District.
Emma Lucas-Darby, chair of the Hill House board, has said the organization has gradually been cutting programs amid its financial problems. She could not be reached for comment later Monday.
The overarching issue, Mr. Wheatley said after the meeting, revolves around the association’s future and development along Centre Avenue.
The nonprofit outlined a plan in late August to sell four buildings to Omicelo LLC, a Pittsburgh investment firm and developer. That transaction still would leave it with an approximate $2 million shortfall.
Mr, Lavelle met with the Hill House board after the August meeting and was given “two weeks to find $500,000 to keep the lights on.” He said an effort was made to get interim funding from organizations such as the Pittsburgh, Heinz and Hillman foundations, but was told there was no more such funding for the Hill House.
Allegheny County Councilman DeWitt Walton said the county “stands ready to move the process forward in any way we can” as long as it remains transparent.
Mr. Wheatley said the long-term goal of the effort is to “go from how we got here to a better place.”
The buildings targeted for sale in August include the Hill House headquarters on Centre Avenue, One Hope Square, an office-retail center and a Family Dollar store — both on Centre Avenue — and the Blakey Program Center. It would retain the Kaufmann Center on Centre Avenue, a senior center on Bedford Avenue, and the Centre-Heldman Plaza, which is anchored by a Shop ‘n Save store.
The organization’s administrative offices eventually would move to the Kaufmann Center.
Formally organized in 1964, Hill House grew out of the Irene Kaufmann and Soho Settlement Houses, which in the early 1900s assisted European immigrants including many Jewish settlers in the Hill District.
Hill House was formed to assist members of the black community who remained in the neighborhood after thousands of Hill District residents were displaced by urban renewal strategies including construction of the Civic Arena in the early 1960s.