The CDC and bringing people, stores and vibrancy back to Downtown
John Valentine is the executive director of the Pittsburgh Downtown Community Development Corp., a nonprofit designed to serve residents and businesses in the Golden Triangle.
Part of its mission is to stimulate community development by facilitating residential and retail growth. Mr. Valentine spoke to the Post-Gazette about the goals of the CDC and the issues facing Downtown at this stage of the pandemic.
This interview has been edited for space and clarity.
PG. Tell me a little bit about the Pittsburgh Downtown CDC and what you guys do.
A. The Downtown CDC started in 2012, but we really didn’t get started or implement anything until 2013. And our mission is to make Downtown at least an 18-hour city. So we do this by having events to bring more people in, by advocating for residents and small businesses.
We are the organization that represents residents. And we do represent small businesses in Downtown Pittsburgh. We also recruit retail businesses into the city.
PG. What are the group’s priorities at this point?
A. I think we really have to revitalize Downtown Pittsburgh, postCOVID. And I think there’s an opportunity to create a Downtown [that will be] greater than it ever has been. So we are doing this by recruiting more retail into Downtown.
And we are also trying to have more events that will draw more traffic.
PG. What kind of events are you looking at?
A. For 2023, we’re hoping to do a light-up boat parade on the river. And we’re also in the due diligence right now of the feasibility of a music festival. So these would be larger events than we’ve ever done where we expect to draw a lot of people.
PG. Downtown has been hit hard by the pandemic. How would you assess its rebound at this point?
A. I think it’s very early to assess but if I had to assess right now, I’d say we’re in the process of building the foundation back up. There’s things that we have to do. We have to address some of the issues — more housing, we do know that more residents want to move in. And we do know that the businesses need to come back.
I don’t know if they’ll ever come back to where it was pre-COVID.
But I think we can get a lot of the business, a lot of the workforce back, and that’ll help a lot of the businesses that are Downtown and bring back a lot of the vibrancy that has kind of lost its consistency. Some weekends we’re vibrant, some weekdays we’re vibrant, but mostly we are not right now.
One of the positives is that for the restaurants, they don’t need people back five days a week because the workforce that worked Downtown would eat lunch in their places and still just go out maybe two or three days. They’re still going to do that.
If they come in to work for two or three days, they’re going to want to go out, want to get into the restaurants. So I don’t see that big a drop-off in business. But we will lose some vibrancy with less people. And we don’t know. We’re doing some guesstimates but we don’t know what percentage of the workforce will ultimately come back
and kind of find their water mark.
PG. What more do you think needs to be done in order to restore more of the vibrancy that we had Downtown before the pandemic?
A. I think we need to fill a lot of these empty storefronts. I think we have to figure out, and no city has figured this out yet, but homelessness is a huge problem. I wish I had an answer. I don’t. But I think we need to look at what we can do in a humane way where we have dignity for the homeless people but at the same time make people who come Downtown feel safe.
I believe we are a safe city,but sometimes there’s a perception that we’re not. And I think that we need to work on things like that. I also believe that we’re working on affordable housing and that’s going to be a big part of creating a more diverseDowntown.
PG. Mayor Gainey earlier this year at a CDC-sponsored event mentioned that he thought that there needed to be some work in cleaning up Downtown. How would you assess that?
A. I agree. I think that Downtown can be a lot cleaner. We have to do something to get rid of the urine odors. We can do it with quaternary disinfectants. It gets rid of the germ, not just the odor. If you get rid of only the odor, it’s going to come back.
PG. Downtown has a lot of restaurants. What do you think can be done to bring in more retail such as clothing stores, that type of thing?
A. I think we need to get more people directly interested in coming Downtown. I think we need to have want a to reason come for Downtown, them to whether that be incentives, a clean city. I know that there’s a group of us, a lot of stakeholders, that are working on Smithfield
Street. I think Smithfield Street has a lot of potential.
I’m happy to see that the mayor’s administration is really motivated and really implementing some things to create a great Downtown. I think all these things go hand in hand. I know the city’s going to put LED lights all throughout Downtown. And I think that’s going to help light up Downtown because there are somepockets of darkness.
PG. You mentioned Smithfield Street. What’s going on there?
A. There’s a group of stakeholders, including us, that are working to create a corridor with outdoor dining, cafes, more retail shopping, things along that line on Smithfield Street. And right now we’re at the very beginning where we’re looking at the possibility of a makeover. But I want to stress it’s not the Downtown CDC. We’re just a part of it. There’s the city, there’s other organizations that are all working to bring this together.
PG. What would you say is the most pressing need Downtown right now?
A. Good question. I think getting the workforce back.
PG. And why do you say that?
A. It’s a because hard question to answer because I think to there’s more than one pressing need. And I think that not only the workforce, but, at the sake of being repetitive, you also have the empty storefronts, and we definitely need more residential, and I’m so happy to see so many projects in the pipeline. Obviously the homeless. You know, there’s pressing needs. But I don’t think — you know that old saying Rome wasn’t built in a day — that it’s going to happen with a magic wand. It’s going to take a lot of hard work and some time.
looking PG. Many forward people to the are opening of the Downtown Target. What impact do you think that will have on the overall vitality of Downtown and the overall retail landscape?
A. I think you’re starting to see it already. I mean, you’ve seen that Five Below has signed the lease to come into Pittsburgh. I don’t think that would have happened without Target. I think that you’re going to see areas around the Kaufmann’s building start to grow, including Smithfield Street. I think you’re going to see that more people will come to Target and that will create more foot traffic, which will attract more businesses.
PG. What do you see as the next big development Downtown, if you could look into your crystal ball?
A. You know, I have come to the conclusion that whenever I speculate, I realize that I’m usually wrong. So I don’t know. And that’s my honest answer. I’m not sure what the next big development is.
But I can tell you that there’s a lot of residential projects in the pipeline — the transformation of commercial space into residential and there is a demand for that. So maybe it’s not one specific project but the residential community growing as a whole and I think that’s a great positive to create an 18-hour city.