Pittsburgh provides revitalization examples

Leaders show how they redeveloped former steel mill sites.
HOMESTEAD, Pa. (AP) -- Rejuvenating a former steel mill site and creating a new development there isn't just a matter of hauling out the old and bringing in the new.
There are roads to build, sewer and water lines to put in, environmental problems to solve and governmental bodies to bring to consensus.
Then, there's the concern that visitors and customers will ignore the community's old main street or downtown in favor of the shiny new restaurants, stores and other buildings.
Developers and leaders in the Pittsburgh area have cleared -- or have attempted to clear -- such hurdles in redeveloping the former LTV Corp. and U.S. Steel sites into the South Side Works and Waterfront, respectively.
Now, communities such as Carlisle, Steelton and Lewisburg are taking note.
Borough treasurers, council members and urban planners from around Pennsylvania toured the mix-use developments near or on the banks of the Monongahela River this week.
They compared the two retail, entertainment, office and residential complexes and studied the developments' impacts on neighboring central business districts.
"I think there's a potential here, and I didn't have any clue that there was this much depth to redevelopment happening in Pittsburgh," said Kim Wheeler, an urban planner from Lewisburg.
The bus tour was part of the Pennsylvania Downtown Center's annual conference, which is taking place this week in Pittsburgh.
The group, which helps communities redevelop their downtowns, is using the convention to show leaders from across Pennsylvania examples of brownfield revitalization, marketing strategies and zoning techniques.
For the most part, the old U.S. Steel Homestead Works has been transformed into the 300-acre, $300 million Waterfront, said Barry Ford, vice president of Continental Real Estate Cos., the developer of the site.
Transformation task
It was no easy task: As of September 1997, the land was void of roads, utilities and other basic development.
Because of the size of the site, the project required the cooperation of three municipalities -- Homestead, West Homestead and Munhall -- each of which had its own zoning ordinances, solicitors and governing bodies, Ford said.
"The whole Mon Valley was devastated -- probably more than any other place in the world -- by the decline of steel," said Steven Paul, a business, community and economic development consultant and a speaker on the tour.
"Braddock and Rankin and Duquesne and Clarion, all of these places are looking around and they see what's happened here and they say, 'Wow, if Homestead can do that, maybe there's something we can do to come back as well.'"
But across a set of railroad tracks from the Waterfront sits Homestead's main drag, which hasn't experienced a similar rejuvenation.
Paul, who until recently was Homestead's Main Street manager, puts blame for the central business district's sluggish turnaround on speculators who bought buildings hoping that the values would skyrocket with the Waterfront's creation, then failed to maintain the properties.
Across the river, the South Side Works serves as the eastern anchor for Pittsburgh's South Side, a neighborhood known for its bars and shops.
Urban planners have tried to create a continuity between the two areas by using such things as similar lighting and joint promotions, said Rick Belloli, the executive director of the South Side Local Development Co.
Linda McGuire of the Downtown Carlisle Association said she could see how the development techniques could be applied to small towns.
"Can we compare? No. Can we take some of their concepts? Absolutely," McGuire said.