Volume 32 No. 4
April 2016
Allegheny Center, a history of change
Observatory Hill housing project approved by URA By Justin Criado
The board of the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh (URA) approved an Observatory Hill revitalization project that will focus specifically on Bonvue Street during its meeting March 10. The URA will provide $400,000 in grants and loans, in addition to $150,000 in de-
Photo by Neil Strebig
A current look at the barren halls of Nova Place inside Allegheny Center, site of the former mall. By Neil Strebig Bitter winds howl through a desolate concourse. The revolving door at Two Allegheny Center used to be crammed with businessmen in suits now stands silent, mirrored by cardboard borders. The silence continues as you enter a vacant hallway where Zayre’s used to be. A few decades’ prior, vegetation hung from the second floor canopy as if the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were right here in Northside. That vegetation is gone, leaving a mall covered in dust,
filled to the brim with stale air; an acting reminder that Allegheny Center was on life support. That was until Faros Properties signed a $100 million check to purchase the 1.2 million-square-foot space. Rebranded as Nova Place, New York-based company has dynamic plans on turning what has become somewhat of an eye sore to local residents into an attraction. “When the mall came in, it was ‘the mall.’ Period. Sort of wiped out everything the Northside had and we’ll never get back,” Councilwoman Darlene Harris
said. “Allegheny Center didn’t really help and it hurt East Ohio Street. It hurt businesses. It took the heart out of the Northside.” Allegheny Center and the Northside used to be a destination. Now, a few guests make their way through the mall, past an empty bed of soil, covered in foam packing peanuts, heading downstairs into the Eco Café, one of the few businesses left in the former Allegheny Center Mall. “For Northsiders, it is a non-entity. It is there. We know it is there, See Allegheny Center, Page 18
See Project, Page 24