Schenley plaza opened over summer

While Marilyn Lucas and her grandson waited for his mother to get out of an appointment the… While Marilyn Lucas and her grandson waited for his mother to get out of an appointment the other day they decided to kill time with a stroll through Schenley Plaza, the newly opened green space between Hillman and Carnegie Libraries.

“It looks like it’s going to be quite grand,” Lucas said while rocking her grandson’s stroller under the shade of a tent in the corner of the Plaza.

Schenley Plaza is the newly constructed five-acre, $10 million plot of land that serves as the entrance to the adjacent Schenley Park. Prior to the Plaza, the land was being used as 278-space parking lot.

The Plaza features a lawn, flower gardens, four food kiosks with dining tables and free wireless Internet access as well as a carousel with rides for $1.25. To offset the loss of parking spaces, approximately 110 metered spaces have been added in the area around the Plaza.

Giving people like Lucas and her grandson a place to spend time together was one of the goals in building Schenley Plaza, according to Reynolds Clark, vice chancellor for Community and Governmental Relations at the University of Pittsburgh.

Clark is also the chair of the Oakland Task Force, a group of businesses and institutions whose goal is the improvement of Oakland.

Clark said the Plaza was created to be “a community magnet, a place people naturally gravitate to on a daily basis.”

“I hope it will be used for the enjoyment of the public to relax,” said Meg Cheever, president and founder of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. According to its press release, the Conservancy has a 30-year lease to run and maintain the Plaza.

Though the Conservancy is in charge of the Plaza’s operation, funding for the Plaza’s $10 million price tag came primarily from three entities: $5 million from the state, $2 million from the Conservancy and $3 million from the Oakland Investment Committee.

The Oakland Investment Committee is a six-member organization made up of Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Museums and Library, UPMC, Pitt, Heinz Endowments and the R. K. Mellon Foundation.

While Clark and Cheever say response to the Plaza has been mostly positive, there have been some concerns voiced by local business owners about it, especially over the loss of approximately 110 parking spaces in a neighborhood that is, according to Clark, the third largest business area in Pennsylvania.

“Parking is always an issue,” Dale Nixon said, manager of Phantom of the Attic, a shop on South Craig Street near the Plaza.

Although Nixon said he doubted that his store would lose any business because of the loss of parking spaces, he did say that “parking is a notorious concern.”

“We realize there is a great need of parking in Oakland. It is something we took very seriously,” Cheever said.

She said one of the goals in designing the Plaza was “the smallest loss possible of spaces.”

Other concerns have been that the Plaza’s food kiosks represent additional competition for Oakland restaurants. But Clark did not agree with that assessment.

“As we make Oakland more of a destination, we’re going to be bringing more people to Oakland,” Clark said. “When you bring more people, everybody’s going to benefit from that.”

Suzanne Thinnes, communication manager for Carnegie Library, said the Library was not worried that the loss of parking would affect attendance.

“[The Plaza] has only done wonderful things for Oakland.”

While the transformation of the land from a parking lot to a park has met some resistance, the land was originally given to the city by Mary Schenley in 1889, and it was done so under the provision that the land would always be used as a park.

More than 100 years later, it seems that the city is living up to its end of the bargain.