URA owes community an explanation for scuttled Homewood development
The Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum is one of the most impressive physical assets in Homewood. But despite multiple compelling development opportunities that would have brought economic opportunity and other benefits to this long-neglected neighborhood, the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh has decided to allow it to remain vacant, seemingly indefinitely.
The URA announced last October that it was going back to the drawing board, explaining in a convoluted statement that “the RFI [request for information] process alone was an insufficient vehicle for developing a proposal that would ensure the coliseum’s sustainability and viability.” But in the five months since that announcement, no apparent progress has been made: The URA’s website includes no further requests for proposals, or mentions of any progress at all toward developing this essential site.
Meanwhile, a business owner whose proposal for the site included bringing dozens of jobs, workforce development space and community recreation to Homewood has decided to move his business not just out of the neighborhood, but out of the city entirely. A unique opportunity for Homewood and Pittsburgh has been lost, and there’s no apparent backup plan.
In rejecting this proposal, the URA indicated that neighborhood feedback demonstrated a “clear desire and priority for any potential end use” to include “a community-serving space for all ages and for the space to live on as a safe gathering space for youth and families.” This is an understandable sentiment, and one that should be honored as far as possible in redeveloping a community asset.
Still, nostalgia is not an economic development strategy. Doing what’s right for a community involves hard decisions that will disappoint some people, even a lot of people, whose own vision and views don’t take in the entire picture. Making community input the only factor that matters, as seems to be the case here, too often results in paralysis. Trying to please everyone will ultimately please no one.
The original RFI stated that the URA was “looking for feasible project concepts that include industrial and commercial components that align with the neighborhood plan and provide benefits to the community.” There’s nothing wrong with that description, and multiple proposals — including the Conturo Prototyping bid described above — fulfilled every criterion, including community recreational space. Something else -— perhaps disdain for the previous mayoral administration — seems to be involved in scuttling them.
The URA’s description of the site indicates that it is “essential to anchoring the avenue and to generating long term economic activity for the neighborhood.” But the agency isn’t treating it like that at all. The people of Homewood have had to stare at this vacant space, with so much potential, for too long. They deserve an explanation.