The Duquesne Duke

Issue date: 3/11/10 Section: News

Media Credit: Brad Morocco A community organization in Pittsburgh's Uptown neighborhood, located between Downtown and Oakland, will receive grant money to develop the area.

An Uptown development firm plans to use its share of a $275,000 grant from a local nonprofit to replace parking lots with residential buildings with street-level retail space.

Uptown Partners will split the grant from Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development with groups from Oakland and the Hill District. The group provided $1.3 million in grants for more than a dozen Pittsburgh neighborhoods this year.

Steve Schillo, Duquesne University's vice president for Management and Business, said he hopes Duquesne students will be able to utilize the new housing.

"We know two things: that there are 3,500 graduate students not living in the Uptown community; and Duquesne does not provide graduate students housing," Schillo said. "We'd love to see housing in general for graduate students."

The group also plans to use the grant to improve public safety, add more green space and blend art into the urban landscape in the stretch between Duquesne and Oakland, said Uptown Partners Director Jeanne McNutt.

PPND's President Ellen Kight said they hope the grant will help to improve the quality of life in Uptown.

"We see an opportunity for a very vibrant neighborhood that builds on the access for other neighborhoods - connections to universities, hospitals, the arena - and those create a lot of business opportunities and a thriving place for smaller businesses to grow," Kight said.

Uptown Partners, the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation and the Hill District's Hill House Economic Development Corporation incorporated the grant into a maximum 10-year plan that will focus on residential development, McNutt said. The plan also includes joint real estate development, transportation planning, marketing, neighborhood campaigns and workforce development.

"Because Uptown's population has declined significantly over the past 40 to 50 years - due to disinvestment, poverty and disintegration of its social and built fabric - our vision is to rebuild a strong resident base," McNutt said. "Thus, housing - new and rehabbed - is our primary goal."

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