Pitt has big effect on city

A Pitt department recently released its biennial Economic Impact Report, detailing the… A Pitt department recently released its biennial Economic Impact Report, detailing the amounts of Pitt’s spending, contribution and earnings.

Pitt’s Office of Public Affairs reported that Pitt provides $1.5 billion in related spending, contributes $117.4 million to community coffers through sales, wages and real estate taxes and generates $1.1 billion in personal income from its 32,000 jobs, according to a press release.

The group claims that the money Pitt generates through student, faculty and research spending bolsters Western Pennsylvania’s economy.

John Fedele, a Pitt spokesman, said that faculty salaries play a large role in helping Pittsburgh’s economy because since many faculty members live in the area, they generate a large amount of money in wage taxes, property taxes and school taxes.

He also said that the money that people from Pitt spend goes to support local businesses.

“Every time I go to a play, a Steelers game or a local restaurant, I go and help create local jobs and businesses,” Fedele said.

The 2006 Report also said that Pitt has generated approximately $115.7 million in average annual investment in construction from 2003 through 2005, which generated 1,100 jobs.

Fedele said that during this time, Pitt also paid approximately $1 billion in new dorms, renovations for the sidewalk outside the Litchfield Towers and upgrades in buildings like Clapp, Langley and the Cathedral.

“[Pitt] puts up buildings that are aesthetically pleasing and replaces buildings that have outlived their usefulness.”

The report also cited the $78 million generated in direct and indirect expenditures associated with people visiting Pitt.

Fedele explained that this money is mostly generated through the visits of prospective students.

“Let’s say you’re a student visiting Pitt from Philly,” Fedele said. “You would come to Pittsburgh and you might buy a hotel room, eat out at a local restaurant and do some local sightseeing.”

Business officials and visiting scholars also help to generate $78 million in direct and indirect expenditures.

Fedele said the direct expenditures refer to the items that are bought, like food or souvenirs. Indirect expenditures refer to the workers’ salaries of the items that people buy.

He also said that every new and old business in Oakland somehow caters to some of the needs of Pitt and CMU’s students and faculty, and that location of businesses next to these colleges can help their sales.

But the size of the university may not matter as much as the size of the city in which it is located.

Fedele said that while Pitt is a large university, it is also located in a large city, and may not have the same impact on the community as a small college would have in a small city.

“A small college in a rural area would be a huge part of that economy,” Fedele said. “Probably bigger than Pitt’s because Pitt is in a big city.”