Community coffee house first to land at Hill District vacant plaza
It’s not the coveted grocery, but the Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority has landed its first tenant to start restocking the vacant Centre Heldman Plaza in the Hill District.
URA officials will begin lease negotiations with the Cares CommuniTEA Cafe to occupy the former Crazy Mocha space in the plaza, located at 1850 Centre Ave.
A formal announcement is expected at the authority’s board meeting Thursday.
Also at the meeting, the board will consider starting six months of exclusive negotiations with Steel City Squash, which is seeking to build a facility on publicly owned land in Larimer.
According to information provided in the URA agenda, the Cares CommuniTEA Cafe will establish a coffee house in the Centre Heldman Plaza that will use the expertise of Hill professionals to create a learning lab for work experience for local youth.
The 777-square-foot coffee house also will host special events and initiatives like community conversations, book clubs, art displays and live jazz music.
Diamonte Walker, URA deputy executive director, said Tuesday the cafe will be a collaboration between the Center That Cares in the Hill District and Claudy Pierre, a Hill resident who runs his own catering business, Eminent Hospitality, and the nonprofit EAT Initiative that trains students in healthy eating and meal preparation.
Both are located in the Hill’s Energy Innovation Center. Mr. Pierre also operated the Arnold’s Coffee & Tea on the North Side before it closed in April, a victim of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He will serve as the operating manager of the Cares CommuniTEA Cafe, Ms. Walker said.
The cafe will face Centre Avenue. Ms. Walker sees it as a catalytic space, one that can help to strengthen the corridor.
“I think this is a major win for the community, and they received a lot of community support,” she said.
“I’m happy to be working with Rev. [Glenn] Grayson, Councilman [R. Daniel] Lavelle and the URA on this initiative, which will help match existing Hill District professionals with local youth looking for opportunities,” Mayor Bill Peduto added in a statement.
Rev. Grayson, senior pastor at the Wesley Center AME Zion Church in the Hill, is president and CEO of the Center That Cares.
The Cares CommuniTEA Cafe emerged from a request for interested tenants the URA issued in March to try to find businesses to occupy space in the 37,203-square-foot shopping plaza with multiple storefronts.
Although the URA received 14 responses from potential tenants, half of them dropped out because of COVID-19 ramifications or other factors, according to the authority.
The Cares CommuniTEA Cafe was selected based on feedback received during the Hill Community Development Corp.’s development review process, community benefits and a financial analysis, the URA stated.
While the selection of the cafe represents a step in the right direction, URA and Hill officials still are hoping to land another grocer to fill the 20,000-square-foot space vacated by Shop ‘n Save last year.
URA officials have reached out to several largescale grocers in the region about taking the space, which anchors the plaza, but so far none has committed. Ms. Walker said conversations with grocers are continuing.
The URA paid $1.6 million last fall to acquire the plaza. It did so after the Hill House Association decided to dissolve and sell off all of its real estateholdings, the 2.57-acre plaza being the largest one.
As for Steel City Squash, the board will consider six months of exclusive negotiations and a possible threemonth extension with the group regarding the purchase and redevelopment of vacant land along Larimer Avenue.
Steel City Squash plans to build a new facility at the site, which will include squash courts and classroom and meeting space that could be made available to the community.
It rents space from Chatham University but now is looking to move into its own headquarters, according to the URA.
It settled on the 40,665square-foot Larimer site because of its central location, as well as plans to redevelop
Larimer Avenue. The project will cost an estimated $5 million.
Also Thursday, the board is expected to consider extending exclusive negotiations another six months with Fifth and Dinwiddie Development LLC for the sale of 34 parcels at Fifth Avenue and Dinwiddie Street in Uptown for a 167unit apartment complex.
The development would feature two mixed-use buildings joined by a skybridge. Of the 167 units, 20% would be affordable to households with incomes ranging from at or below 20% of the area median income to at or below 60% of the AMI.