Despite Foreclosures Elsewhere Pittsburgh Is Seeing Resurgence in Construction Activity
Despite foreclosures elsewhere, choking development, Pittsburgh is seeing resurgence in construction activity.
Six years previously Kathy and her husband did something out of the ordinary in Pittsburgh that was formerly famous as the steel town. They disposed of their house in the suburbs and went downtown where there were hardly any condos or even a grocery shop. The whole locality went to sleep after 5 pm.
Today not just hundreds but thousands have followed in the footsteps of Kathy laying stake to their claims in localities sandwiched between skyscrapers and office complexes where there is a sharp rise in demand for new condos and lofts.
The jumbo cities like Miami and Phoenix are struggling with foreclosures en masse and construction activity has ground to a halt. But Pittsburgh is now basking in the sunlight of what may be termed a renaissance. Developers have already poured in $4 billion into projects in downtown Pittsburgh.
The author of ‘Cities Back from the Edge; New Life for Downtown’ Roberta Brandes Gratz said that the spurt of development in Pittsburgh is real and genuine. It smacks of a long-term success story. Those cities that focused on putting up a single mall in the downtown locality are now facing problems. But it is not so with Pittsburgh – the latter can be taken to be a model for urban growth.
In nearly every corner of downtown Pittsburgh there is frenetic activity. Many century old structures are renovated side by side with new units that are coming up. There are workers everywhere snaking through the piles of construction materials and ladders. Some derelict buildings are being demolished. There is movement everywhere.
All this activity will lead to comfortable retail space, a new YMCA quarter, extension of light rail, hockey field, casino slots and renovation of the old Market Square that is encircled by eateries, pubs and coffee shops.
The vibrations of throbbing urbanity are spilling over making life worth living. Kathy looks out of her floor-to-ceiling windows and surveys the teeming traffic of Penn Avenue. She exclaims, “It’s new. It’s an emerging neighborhood. It’s never existed before, it makes it even more fun.”
From 2001 Pittsburgh had started to woo residents to move in downtown. Within a span of 8 years the population has more than doubled from 2,500 in 2000 to a whopping 5,174 in 2008 according to US Census.
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