Riverlife begins revamp of Allegheny Riverfront Park as part of ‘Three Sisters Experience’

More than 30 years ago, Carol Brown, first president of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, was the driving force behind the creation of Allegheny Riverfront Park.

At the time, she had the vision to eliminate a lane of traffic from Fort Duquesne Boulevard to create a unique strip of park land overlooking the river from Stanwix Street to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

With age and years of neglect — no sealing of bluestone pavers, using rock salt in the winter — the park fell into disrepair and at one point a few years ago became an encampment for homeless people.

Brown, now retired, saw what was happening and two years ago visited Riverlife, the community organization with a mission of championing the city’s riverfronts. She “tactfully but directly” asked the group to become involved in revitalizing the space, President and CEO Matt Galluzzo remembered Thursday.

“You don’t tell Carol Brown ‘no,’” Galluzzo said Thursday at a groundbreaking for a $5.4 million rehabilitation and revitalization of the park.

The project is part of a series of steps to create the “Sisters Bridges Experience,” using the unique identical designs of the Roberto Clemente, Andy Warhol and Rachel Carson bridges to create a common experience.

• All three bridges, within three blocks of each other crossing the Allegheny to link the Cultural District with the North Side, have been completely refurbished in the past decade.
• Allegheny County, which owns the bridges, installed decorative LED lights where the display can change randomly or follow a holiday theme.
• The Cultural Trust will begin a project in the next few weeks to convert a 4-acre site where the former Goodyear tire store was located into an urban park known as Arts Landing just across Fort Duquesne Boulevard from Allegheny Riverfront.

The new design will use different stronger bluestone pavers, add 35 trees of several varieties instead of just London plane trees, and widen the approaches at intersections to create more open welcoming spaces for food trucks and other gatherings. The goal is to have the work finished in November, well before the city hosts the National Football League draft next April.

Riverlife also has set up a $1 million endowment and will pay a contractor for regular maintenance on the site. The city had been responsible for maintenance and didn’t always do an appropriate job.

In an interview after the event, Galluzzo said one of Riverlife’s next goals is to redo Allegheny Landing, the riverbank park across the Allegheny from the cultural district.

“This area has such a basic foundation to be a great place,” he said. “This will be the next town square. It really has a series of diverse but cohesive experiences.”

In her remarks at the ceremony, Brown said she was happy that Riverlife “accepted the responsibility” for improving the park. She called the new project “a second wonderful beginning.”

Laura Solano, an architect for Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates who was involved in the first project, said she was happy to participate in this rebirth. She credited civic leaders for not just abandoning the site.

“You’re not throwing away something, but you see its value and you’re bringing it back,” she said. “It’s important to honor our spaces.”

That commitment is what got Riverlife involved, Galluzzo said.

“The community cares deeply, deeply about its spaces,” he said.

This project is the first major piece of Riverlife’s long-term plans to “complete the loop” by filling in gaps in riverfront parks in a 15-mile semi-circle from the Hot Metal Bridge on the Monongahela River to the West End Bridge on the Ohio River and the 31^st Street Bridge on the Allegheny. After Allegheny Landing, Galluzzo said, the next major step in the $246.8 million plan will be synching with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to install a world-class observation trail along the West End Bridge facing Point State Park when the bridge has a major upgrade in 2028-29.

“The key is [Riverfront] is among the first dominoes to fall,” he said. “We’re trying to stay in lock step with PennDOT to move ahead with the West End Bridge when that is ready.”

Mayor Ed Gainey stressed the importance of the city continuing its concentration on riverfront parks, an asset he referred to as his version of “serenity.”

“I believe our greatest natural resources are our rivers,” he said. “I don’t think we have a better asset than our rivers.”