Editorial: New downtown must be friendly to all

The center of downtown Pittsburgh is only four miles from the Cathedral of Learning. Nearly a dozen bus routes connect the educational hub of Pittsburgh to the commercial hub.

Yet, to most Pitt students, Downtown remains as familiar as a Big East win for women’s basketball. Aside from the occasional Pitt Arts trip, most Oakland college students will sooner find themselves in Shadyside or South Side than the Golden Triangle.

The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership and city leaders hope to change this, and have proposed a redevelopment plan to make the area more welcoming.

The plan forgoes two decades of attempts to turn Downtown into another suburb. These efforts, largely spearheaded by former Mayor Tom Murphy, focused on enticing big-box retailers to anchor a new retail district. Through tax incentives and pressure from the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, many smaller, independent shops were forced out and several (now closed) department stores were opened.

Instead of simply recreating suburban convenience, the new plan embraces the urbanity of the city. New development focuses on more harmonious integration with current infrastructure and the creation of additional attractions.

Progress is already being made to achieve this vision. Residents are moving Downtown in record numbers, attracted by new apartments and condominiums. Renovations in Market Square have infused new life into a burgeoning restaurant and nightlife scene. Point Park University has expanded along Wood Street, adding a small, but growing, student community to the Downtown mix.

But despite these advances, the business district — aside from several blocks surrounding the theaters — still largely shuts down after 5 or 6 p.m. While it’s perhaps no longer in decline, the whole Downtown area has a long way to go before it becomes the 24-hour neighborhood destination planners envision, unlike the South Side or Shadyside.

Progress creeps slowly. An article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review shows that politicians, civic groups and business leaders all sense increasing interest in development. The Pittsburgh Downtown Community Development Corp., another advocacy group, is also in the preliminary stages of creating a dog park and a public entertainment venue for cultural productions.

But among the plans, stories and subtle optimism, one thing seems to be missing: a clear effort to integrate some of Pittsburgh’s 60,000 students into the 21st-century Golden Triangle.

After all, while much of the new restaurant and club activity is nice, few college students have the cash to go to McCormick & Schmicks and then a night at the opera. Nor will we spend hundreds on expensive fashion at new boutiques.

Yet this seems to be the direction most of the development is leading. Just yesterday, Pittsburgh City Council gave an OK to the sale of buildings for a women’s fashion district on Wood Street. While this is not necessarily comparable to the heavy-handed suburbanization of the late ’90s, a fashion district will push Downtown no closer to being an urban village than Saks Fifth Avenue.

If yesterday’s actions are the essence of new development, it is very conceivable that a dozen years from now Downtown will remain the distant land it is today: A cool place to be, but not part of daily life.

Yet for downtown Pittsburgh to become the 24-hour community that leaders envision, a vibrant student population — beyond only Point Park University students — will need to be part of the residency. So, too, will residents of all surrounding neighborhoods — the North Side, Uptown, Mt. Washington and the like.

To get these people to take part in a real Downtown Renaissance, they can’t be priced out. Downtown as nothing more than a playground for upper-middle class suburbanites might bring tax dollars to the city, but it will not create an “urban village.”

Hopefully, this will be remembered as the city continues its evolution.