KDKA Investigators

Local, Pens Officials Make Plans For Hill District

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― It was 45 years ago when bulldozers leveled the lower Hill District to make way for the Civic Arena, but the promise of economic development did not follow.

Now, with a new arena planned for across the street - the city, the county and the Penguins don't want history to repeat itself. So in the next few days they will present a plan to a coalition of Hill District leaders.

In the proposal are plans for a grocery store, a multi-purpose recreation center and a job center where Hill District residents will get preferential consideration for arena-related job as well as job training and support for other employment.

"I can tell you that it includes language looking at a grocery store, it includes language looking at a recreational youth center, job center, preferential hiring for Hill District residents," said Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

The city and county will also work with leaders on a master plan for the development of the entire Hill.

KDKA Investigator Andy Sheehan reports that as comprehensive and as generous as the city-county plan appears, it does fall short of what community leaders were requesting. In addition to those things, the coalition leaders wanted cash donations to a development fund for projects such as the Granada Theater.

Members of the coalition called "One Hill" declined to comment on the proposal saying they haven't yet received it.

But some members have said without cash donations, they will ask the City Planning Commission to reject the arena development plan when it comes up for vote next month.

Mayor Ravenstahl says those kinds of cash donations are not in the cards.

"What I do not support and I've made this very clear is some sort of subsidy," says Ravenstahl, "dollars to some organization in the Hill District, I don't support that concept."

Several of the Hill District leaders contacted by KDKA promised they will weigh in the proposal as soon as they are apprised of all the details.

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