Pittsburgh Urban Initiatives | New Markets Tax Credit Coalition

7800 Susquehanna Street

The renovation of an existing five-story 135,800 square foot industrial building located in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh for the purpose accommodating creative start-up and nascent entrepreneurial business activity. The project was financed in part with new markets tax credits. Bridgeway Capital transforms 7800 Susquehanna Street (7800) into a beacon of economic opportunity for Homewood. Once a vacant warehouse built for Westinghouse Electric, the building is now an economic hub for urban manufacturing, craft businesses, and workforce training. The building reflects Bridgeway’s strategy to provide capital for the people and places creating economic opportunity and community revitalization in Homewood. Bridgeway invested over $10 million into the community including $7 million in 7800’s renovation, $2.4 million in contracts with Homewood businesses maintaining 7800, and $1.4 million in loans to Homewood businesses and other community development projects. 7800 emerges as vital investment in an underinvested area by attracting new commercial activity and supporting local businesses.

Piatt Place

Piatt Place (formerly Lazarus Department Store) was a 265,000 squarefoot vacant department store in downtown Pittsburgh. The premises were built in 1998 as a downtown shopping location by Federated Corporate Services. The building is located at the corner of 5th Avenue and Wood Street, a major thoroughfare in the city’s central business district. The Piatt Place building received the 1999 AIA Georgia Design. The project created an estimated 489 jobs.

East Liberty Portal

The project is a revitalization of a major gateway into the East Liberty neighborhood, which has been undergoing a major transformation after years of blight. The project will bring a Target department store into this urban neighborhood, located on a housing site on which HUD previously foreclosed and which has been designated a brownfield. There are a number of redevelopment projects underway in East Liberty. The completion of the Target Project will help anchor and revitalize East Liberty on its southeastern corner. The $47MM Project will bring 148,000 square feet of new retail into the neighborhood and create over 250 jobs of which 115 would be full-time equivalents. The approximate number of construction jobs to be created by this project is 117. The Project will be located directly across the street from a transit-related development currently in the planning stages.

Alphabet City

City of Asylum Pittsburgh (‘COA’) is a Pittsburgh nonprofit organization that was co-founded by Henry Reese and his wife Diane Samuels in 2004 with the goal of creating a thriving community for writers, readers, and neighbors. COAP opened its doors in Pittsburgh’s Central Northside neighborhood to provide sanctuary to literary writers who were exiled and under threat of persecution from their home countries. It also offers a broad range of literary programs to the community, encouraging cross-cultural exchange. All of COAP’s programming is free to the public, including books, classes, and performances. When COAP wanted to expand its services, PNC, Pittsburgh Urban Initiatives, and a variety of philanthropic partners helped finance the adaptive re-use and historic renovation of the four-story former Masonic Temple into Alphabet City, a mixed-use property which will serve as COAP’s headquarters. Alphabet City will also include flexible performance space, offices, a book store, a restaurant, and eight residential units, six of which will be available to the public for rent and two of which will be used by COAP for its programming. Located in the Garden Theater Block in Pittsburgh’s North Side, the building has been vacant since the mid-1990’s, and the project is a key part of a City -led neighborhood revitalization plan. ‘City of Asylum is already a wonderful North Side institution and I am thrilled at this next step in their evolution. This project will be key to the continued rebirth of the Federal North corridor, which is one of the key entryways not only to the North Side but the city as a whole,’ said Mayor William Peduto. Local foundations have made $3.7 million in grants to the project; Pittsburgh Urban Initiatives, together with PNC, contributed New Markets Tax Credit allocations of $8 million; and the balance is a blend of federal and state historic tax credits, state grants, Community Infrastructure and Tourism Fund, a facÌ§ade grant, a grant from the Allegheny Regional Asset District, and a loan from The Reinvestment Fund. PNC was also the investor of the New Markets and historic tax credits. The $10 million project is expected to create 12 construction jobs and 20 permanent jobs, 13 of which are expected to be accessible to low-income persons. ‘City of Asylum has enriched Pittsburgh’s cultural life’ said Amy Merritt, PNC’s NMTC relationship manager. ‘Their renovation of this iconic building allows them to expand their work in support of our cultural community while advancing the development momentum that is occurring in the FederalNorth corridor.’

Shop N’ Save Pittsburgh

Centre Heldman Plaza, (“CHP”) is a 37,203 GSF supermarket-anchored retail center at the southeast corner of Centre Avenue and Heldman Street in the middle Hill District neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is constructed on a 103,310 square foot contiguous parcel of land between Centre Avenue, Heldman Street, Rose Street and the existing AUBA Triangle Shops adjacent to Dinwiddie Street with an address of 1850 Centre Avenue. The site’s combination of supermarket and local/regional retailers will further attract foot and vehicle traffic to this corridor, which continues to benefit from public and private investment. The project is a component of an urban redevelopment initiative undertaken by Hill House Economic Development Center (HHEDC) to reposition Centre Avenue. This initiative continues to revitalize this once-distressed commercial corridor into the vibrant thoroughfare within the heart of the middle Hill District of Pittsburgh that it once was. The result will be the further provision of merchants that will offer a full-service grocery store and a variety of supportive retail establishments offering a variety of additional products and services to the over 35,200 people who currently live within the estimated trade area of this location.

The Energy Innovation Center

The Energy Innovation Center is a multi-disciplinary institution in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, that integrates workforce development programs, green technology research laboratories, a business incubator and collaborative university-industry projects.