Tear down the walls? Small nonprofit eyes a large prison
Five blocks from the hard stone and long shadows of Pittsburgh’s 137-year-old prison, young trainees walk the skylit, art-and-orchid-adorned halls of the Manchester Bidwell Corp.
If that training center buys the State Correctional Institution Pittsburgh for $1, as proposed, it will take a lot of work and money to bring an airy, open atmosphere to a place with dungeon charm.
Manchester Bidwell President and CEO Kevin Jenkins admits he doesn’t have the experience, funding or — as yet — even a plan to take on the 22-acre prison site, closed for two years.
“We need to take a look at a viable business plan,” he said Wednesday. “I’d have to bring partners that are much more educated in economic development than I.”
Nonetheless, he and his staff are “cautiously optimistic,” that they’ll have a plan when their due diligence period ends in October,
he said. “We’re not scared.”
Word that the state plans to sell the massive prison complex for $1 has raised concerns in the surrounding neighborhoods, given voice by Councilwoman Darlene Harris at a May 10 news conference decrying the lack of community input into the state’s decision.
“I just was surprised that [the state] would pick one entity and sell 22 acres with so much history, for a dollar,” the councilwoman said Thursday.
“It’s nothing about Bidwell. I think they’re a great group and have done a lot of good,” she continued. “But that is, again, a historic site, and there’s much more that could be done to help people in need. … There’s so much there that can be done.
“You can also have a part there for Bidwell,” which, she noted, has operated for 50 years on a campus of roughly 2½ acres.
Manchester Bidwell Corp. currently trains around 140 adults and 1,200 youth annually in job skills. The center trains adults to be chemical laboratory technicians, culinary artists, horticulturalists, medical assistants, medical claims processors, medical coders and pharmacy technicians, among other programs, and for youth offers school-day and afterschool art and music education, plus jazz for all ages.
Mr. Jenkins, a social worker by training with experience in Pittsburgh’s philanthropic sector, said he’s sometimes approached by business leaders who say: “We have an unmet need in our sector, in our company, in our community.” There’s only so much expanding that he can do. “We’re pretty much landlocked by this building.”
In his year at the helm of Manchester Bidwell, he has asked, “What might we be able to do if we had more space?”
He said that when he toured the 22-acre SCI Pittsburgh site, it was “overwhelming from the perspective of what it was used for previously,” and because of the feeling of “being surrounded by the walls and razor wire.” But it was exciting to think about “what it once was and what it could be.”
Using the existing prison buildings, though, seems out of the question.
“Built environment is extremely important to us,” he said, noting that one of Manchester Bidwell’s core tenets is “Environment shapes behavior.” You can’t build “a world-class training facility,” especially one for marginalized populations, he said, “inside a penitentiary-type setting.”
“It has to kind of feel like this place,” he said, as he sat in an airy, well-lit chemistry lab at Manchester Bidwell’s headquarters.
The massive prison site has more than a dozen buildings, including the old warden’s quarters, prison housing units, dining hall, auditorium, storage buildings, warehouse, visitors’ complex, and the circa 1922”correctional industries” shop buildings where license plates were manufactured, according to a historic survey about the site prepared last year for the state.
That would all be expensive to overhaul, and Bidwell’s resources are modest.
On June 30, at the end of its fiscal year, the nonprofit Manchester Bidwell Corp. had net assets of $3.6 million, down steadily from a high of $4.6 million in mid-2015. A spokesman for the nonprofit organization said the dip in net assets was the result of depreciation of its building and equipment.
There are also potential historic considerations for anyone who buys the site.
A survey on the prison’s historic qualities recommended it for eligibility on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission is in the process of working with the National Park Service to list the property, said Howard Pollman, a spokesman for the commission, though that listing doesn’t mean buildings can’t be torn down or redeveloped.
The prison is “a significant example of a Victorianera penitentiary that combined historical architectural forms and methods of construction with modern advances in infrastructure, utilities, sanitation, and features of prison design influenced by the industrial revolution,” according to the survey, prepared by Clio Consulting, Pfaffman + Associates and Halderman Historic Preservation Consulting.
Mr. Jenkins also said his organization would have more community conversations if it decides to go through with the acquisition.
“The community voice has to be at the table should we move forward,” he said.
Northside Leadership Conference Executive Director Mark Fatla said the conference of neighborhood organizations hasn’t yet taken a position on what should happen to the property.
“The first rule of community development is you’ve got to involve the community. I’m sure we’ll be there at some point in the process,” he said.
The difficulty of redeveloping a sprawling former corrections site can be seen elsewhere in southwestern Pennsylvania.
The state closed the former SCI Cresson in Cambria County and SCI Greensburg in Westmoreland County nearly six years ago, in 2013.
In Westmoreland County, the property was purchased by a private owner who has said he plans to remake the site into the “Greensburg Veterans Sunrise Center.” A video online touts potential future renovations for the site, but no one responded to an inquiry from the Post-Gazette about the site’s current status.
In Cambria County, the property has been subdivided, with a 93-acre, landonly portion owned by the Redevelopment Authority of Cambria County. This site possibly could house a natural gas power plant, said Renee Daly, executive director of the authority.
“The local municipality, Cresson Township, is working with the potential developer on this project and at this time I do not have any concrete updates,” she said.
The portion of the property with all the former prison buildings is owned by a private individual. There haven’t been any demolitions there, though some timber has been removed.
“I am not aware of any developers for this site, although there is interest in selling the property by the current owner,” Ms. Daly said.
Mr. Jenkins isn’t yet able to make any promises regarding the SCI Pittsburgh site. “I’m sure there will be all kinds of ideas,” he said, “at the end of the day.”