Peduto backs building new bridge over Monongahela

Could be boon for Hilltop communities

The city has lots of economic development tools at its disposal to help spur growth. But a bridge?

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto believes one literally could be a key in helping to revitalize Hilltop neighborhoods like Allentown, Knoxville, Carrick, Arlington, Hays and Beltzhoover south of the Monongahela River.

In a recent interview, Mr. Peduto said he sees a new bridge across the Mon as a way to connect those neighborhoods to the 178acre Hazelwood Green site in Hazelwood and to the universities in Oakland.

“Ideally, I think we have to look at connecting that area better to the universities,” he said. “They’re right across the river.”

The bridge could link Becks Run

Road and East Carson Street to Hazelwood Green and eventually to Oakland through a proposed $10 million low-speed, on-call shuttle system that would cut through Junction Hollow. The shuttle plan has come under fire from some Junction Hollow residents.

As Mr. Peduto sees it, such a connection could bring more residents and residential development to the Hilltop communities, where the housing stock generally is cheaper than in the booming East End neighborhoods. That, in turn, could help to spur more commercial development in those areas.

“That would be the reinvestment into those neighborhoods through residen- tial. And retail follows rooftops,” he said.

To get to Hazelwood Green or Oakland now, residents in the Hilltop communities likely would cross the Hot Metal Bridge at SouthSide Works or the Glenwood Bridge. Neither connects directly into Hazelwood Green, the site of the former LTV Coke Works.

Constructing a new span would not be an inexpensive undertaking. The new Greenfield Bridge over the Parkway East, for example, cost $17.5 million to build.

The mayor was not suggesting a crossing would happen overnight. The bridge, he said, would be a “long-term infrastructure improvement as we’re building out Hazelwood.”

Aaron Sukenik, executive director of Hilltop Alliance, a community-based organization that represents 11 neighborhoods — including Allentown, Arlington, Carrick, Beltzhoover and Knoxville — said such a bridge “is certainly of interest to us,” though he has had no conversations with Mr. Peduto about it.

“Any improvements to transportation mobility and access to career centers are certainly desirable,” he said.

Short term, Mr. Sukenik sees workforce development initiatives designed to connect residents to jobs in the region and neighborhood revitalization programs as ways to help stimulate growth in Hilltop Alliance neighborhoods.

At the moment, there appear to be more practical endeavors than a bridge crossing to Hazelwood Green since, he noted, “There isn’t anything to go to at Hazelwood Green.”

“But are we talking about five years from now, 10 years from now? Sure. If that’s going to be an employment center, we’d absolutely want to talk about a better transit connection to it,” Mr. Sukenik said.

At Hazelwood Green, the Regional Industrial Development Corp. is erecting two buildings as part of its Mill 19 redevelopment.

The first, at 94,000 square feet, will be completed this spring. It will house Carnegie Mellon University’s Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute and the Manufacturing Futures Initiative.

The second building, at 66,000 square feet, is to be completed by the end of the year and will be occupied by autonomous vehicle startup Aptiv.

RIDC also has a third building, up to 110,000 square feet in size, under design.

Almono LP, made up of the three foundations that own the site, also is planning to build out another 27 acres in the Mill District. It is courting potential developers for that effort.

Mr. Peduto said he expects three buildings at Hazelwood Green to be fully occupied within the next three years.

He added he is working with the owners — the Heinz Endowments, the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation — to make Hazelwood Green “one of the greenest developments in the world.”

“Potentially this entire site — 178 acres — will be powered solely by renewal energy and much of that being produced on the site,” he said.

Mr. Peduto expects the build-out of Hazelwood Green to take a decade or more. As that happens, he said, the city must begin working to secure the funding needed to erect a new bridge to link the South Hills neighborhoods to the development.

“[The Bridge] would be the reinvestment into those neighborhoods through residential. And retail follows rooftops.” Bill Peduto, Pittsburgh mayor