Downtown Pittsburgh is rebounding, but less smoothly than some would like

Downtown Pittsburgh is a neighborhood of contrasts.

Since the start of the pandemic, Western Pennsylvania’s busiest business district has seen tens of thousands of workers disappear as many companies have shifted to remote work, but it has gained thousands of residents. Violent crime arrests Downtown are dropping, but shootings and homelessness are up.

Even so, the neighborhood still attracts visitors to soldout shows, and hotel occupancy has returned to about 90% of what it was before the pandemic.

The contrasts illustrate a neighborhood in transition, moving away from its longstanding place as a business-and-office center into a residential-and-entertainment district — and a new future.

“I think this is the year we return to the pre-pandemic numbers,” Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership ambassador Ryan Weingartner said as he walked along Penn Avenue and greeted each person he passed.

Weingartner, 35, of Bellevue, walks up to 20 miles a day as part of his job rejuvenating Downtown. He carries everything from an iPad packed with Downtown-related information to hand sanitizer and wet wipes.

“There’s an upward trend — we’re not where we were yet, but we’re getting there,” he said. “I’ve seen measurable improvements Downtown in the last two months … we’re getting there, one step at a time.”

Jeremy Waldrup, president of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, also sees signs of positive momentum.

National retailers such as Target have moved in and are exceeding sales predictions, and a slew of development projects are the pipeline. Large Downtown events — from Picklesburgh to Pride parades to the Three Rivers Arts Festival — have never been more popular.

But stakeholders need to provide more support to complete Downtown’s transition, he added. And everyone in Allegheny County, not just leaders and Downtown residents, will need to understand that Downtown will not look the same as before, but that doesn’t mean it will be worse.

“If we don’t change, we are dead,” Waldrup said.

State of Downtown

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey calls Downtown everyone’s neighborhood.

“Our city and entire region needs to be vibrant and thriving, and the only way to do that is with a Downtown,” he told a large crowd at Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership’s annual meeting in the Union Trust Building in April. “If Pittsburgh is home, Downtown is our living room.”

But elected officials, corporate executives and nonprofit heads struggle to agree on how to address Downtown issues.

Through Downtown’s transition out of the pandemic, competing narratives have emerged.

One of them is that crime is up and it is keeping away residents, visitors, businesses and office workers.

But when you look at the numbers, Downtown crime has remained largely unchanged since 2018, an analysis by the Tribune-Review showed.

Crime Downtown during the past five years peaked in 2019, when there were 30 aggravated assault arrests, 61 simple assault arrests and 18 incidents of criminal mischief, Pittsburgh police data showed. That year, there was just one homicide Downtown.

In 2022, all three categories improved: 19 aggravated assault arrests, 41 simple assault arrests and 14 incidents of criminal mischief. Again, in 2022, there was just one homicide Downtown.

This year is following a similar trajectory, based on figures through May.

“It’s not a perception — we see the same numbers as you,” said Pittsburgh police Zone 2 Cmdr. Matthew Lackner, whose zone includes all of Downtown. “Violent crime has been and continues to be very low in the Downtown business district.”

Police in Zone 2, though, take the different perspectives seriously.

“Reported violent crime and arrests Downtown have remained flat,” Lackner said. “But we fully appreciate the perception of people that Downtown is less safe.”

Lackner said random attacks involving strangers, though, are almost nonexistent.

“What is very rare is violent crime against people who don’t know each other,” he said.

Gainey and his spokeswoman Olga George did not answer the Tribune-Review’s questions about the perception of Downtown crime. They also would not talk about the nuances of Gainey’s plans to address it.

But the mayor, under his Plan for Peace, has tripled the police presence Downtown — up to 16 officers and three supervisors — at a time when staff shortages are reverberating in every police zone. He’s also steering plans to create a “Downtown public safety center” in the Lantern Building​ at 600 Liberty Ave.

Some criticized the move to beef up the police presence in an area where crime has been largely unchanged during the past five years instead of placing more officers in areas where crime has been on the rise — especially with staffing limitations in the department.

Pittsburgh police now has about 820 active officers, down significantly from the 1990s when federal programs helped fund a bureau with 1,700 officers.

Living the Downtown life

Another narrative that has emerged since the pandemic is that Downtown is being abandoned.

Census estimates put Downtown’s population at 5,477 in 2020, up from 5,200 in 2018. The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership said Downtown’s population has grown 21% since the start of the pandemic and stood at just under 6,900 in 2022.

Waldrup said he ultimately wants to see 15,000 Pittsburghers living in the Golden Triangle.

In Greater Downtown — an area including the North Shore, Strip District, Uptown, Lower Hill District, Station Square and Downtown — population growth is even more dramatic. That swelled last year to 22,000 residents, up from 16,000 in 2018.

Visitors also are returning Downtown, even if not to pre-pandemic levels.

As of March, the neighborhood had recovered 71% of the visitors it lost since the start of the pandemic, according to the Pennsylvania Economic League of Greater Pittsburgh.

Events since then have drawn large numbers of visitors.

Pittsburgh Pride attracted tens of thousands of people to march through Downtown in early June. Last month, record crowds attended Taylor Swift concerts and Juneteenth festivities in Downtown and just across the river in the North Shore. The Taylor Swift shows sold out Acrisure Stadium on back-to-back nights.

The Picklesburgh festival is moving locations within Downtown this year to accommodate for expanding crowds. There were more than 90,000 guests for the festival in 2022, and organizers are expecting an even higher turnout this year.

Kendra Whitlock Ingram, CEO of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, said venues in the Cultural District regularly sell out performances.

“With all that we have been discussing about the challenges, one thing we have here is an exceptional and thriving cultural district,” she said.

Pittsburgh entertainment venues also have bounced back from covid-19. Amusement tax revenues grew from $10 million to $17.5 million last year, reflecting a return to near pre-pandemic levels of activity, the Pittsburgh Controller’s office said.

Where are the workers?

Some negative attention Downtown receives, however, is not baseless. Office workers still have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Before covid-19, Downtown attracted more than 70,000 workers each weekday. In April 2020, that figure dropped below 10,000, but some office workers have returned. About 54% of office space Downtown was in use in April, according to the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership.

Recovering all these workers is a massive task. With the growth of remote work, it might not be possible.

Adam Brandolph and his wife moved Downtown near Point Park University from a Lawrenceville starter home in December 2018.

Brandolph, the director of public relations for Pittsburgh Regional Transit, often walks his two dogs Downtown in the evening. And he sees a thriving neighborhood that’s low on crime — and has a lot of really busy restaurants.

“It’s a perception problem, it’s a PR problem more than it is a safety problem,” said Brandolph, 41. “There may be more visible unwanted behavior. I hear it from co-workers and on the street (that) Downtown is so unsafe. That has not been my experience.”

“I think you have to chalk it up to perception,” he added. “If people think Downtown is unsafe, perception then becomes reality.”

McCandless native Michelle Jablonski, 57, comes Downtown with her aide and friend, Iggy Carter, to see theater plays regularly. She says Downtown seems clean and picturesque.

“They talk about crime and everything,” said Carter, 31, of Pittsburgh’s North Side. “We haven’t run into any of that Downtown.”

Even so, the lack of many office workers leaves a void that is most noticeable on weekdays. Filling some of that void has been an increase in homelessness, shooting incidents, visible drug use and littering.

The county saw a minor increase in homelessness from 2021 to 2022, to about 900 people, according to Allegheny County Department of Human Services estimates from winter.

The increase in homelessness isn’t dramatic, and still is dwarfed many other American cities. But it is an issue, and officials have struggled to find sufficient beds, even with a new shelter opening near Allegheny County Jail in November 2022.

Though violent crime arrests have decreased Downtown, shootings are up. Downtown saw 32 shots fired in 2022, the most since recording started in 2010, Pittsburgh police said.

Without the daily activity of as many office workers, public spaces like Mellon Square have become magnets for trash and vagrancy. In April, the Pittsburgh Park Conservancy asked city leaders to improve cleaning of Mellon Square, which they said had become filled with trash, syringes and even human excrement.

Rhoda Lee, 57, lives in the Alcoa Building on William Penn Place in Downtown. She said she moved there because she enjoys city life, but she and her neighbors have grown wary with the level of open drug use in Mellon Square, which sits across Sixth Avenue from the Alcoa Building.

“I am a bit afraid, because of the drug activity,” she said.

Growing Frustrations

Through these ups and downs, tensions sometimes rise between local leaders.

Some, like Gainey, say they are working to tackle the issues. He cites lower crime rates and the steady return of visitors as proof his administration’s policies are working.

Others, including PNC Financial Services Group CEO William Demchak, believe more needs to be done to support development and improve public safety — or Downtown will never fully recover.

Gainey said violent crime Downtown dropped 20% in 2022. He thanked the Downtown Partnership for teaming with the city to establish the Downtown Ambassadors program. The ambassadors are tasked with making Downtown visitors feel more welcomed.

“I think we’re going to really see all the signs this year of people returning to Downtown,” said James Wimberly, the partnership’s general manager of clean, safe and hospitality programs, who helps oversee the Ambassadors. “The Cultural District is always bustling … and there’s more people coming Downtown to live. It’s a resurgence.”

Gainey wants more workers Downtown, but also realizes the neighborhood likely won’t look like it’s pre-pandemic self. The city’s living room, he said, is “rearranging its furniture.”

“We live in a new reality and we must meet these expectations,” Gainey said. “We can’t do it unless we can do it together.”

Demchak agreed that the neighborhood is facing some issues beyond anyone’s control. But he feels Downtown could bring back more workers by being safer, cleaner and more desirable.

Demchak said 6,000 PNC employees are slated to work Downtown — compared to 12,000 pre-pandemic. On the best day, about half of them choose to do so. He thinks workers aren’t returning because of spikes in vagrancy, crime and dirtiness.

Building vacancies and boarded-up storefronts exacerbate that undesirability, he said.

Waldrup praised Gainey for committing $9 million in funding to help convert former office buildings into residential properties. The number, though, is not enough to tackle a backlog of aging office buildings. Waldrup estimates $50 million to $60 million in annual local funding is needed.

John R. Deklewa, CEO of Bridgeville-based developers RDC Inc., said $9 million is what many other cities are offering per office conversion project, not as a whole year’s total. RDC is proposing a 305-unit apartment building on the North Shore.

While Greater Downtown has seen some residential-building growth, cities such as Cleveland, Columbus, and Rochester, N.Y. are outpacing Pittsburgh, he said.

“When you look at our multi-family metrics compared to our peer cities, we are not close to competing. It is unfortunate,” he said.

Maria Montaño, Gainey’s communications director, agreed conversion funds should be bigger, but said the administration wants to see how the pilot program fared before committing more money.

The first conversion project at the Triangle Building at Liberty Avenue and Smithfield Street is now underway. It will include 15 apartments, a cafe on the ground floor and a small neighborhood grocery.

Downtown Resiliency

Downtown’s transition has resulted in some casualties, and fast-food restaurants have been among them.

The neighborhood has lost three McDonald’s and two Burger King locations in recent years. The last McDonald’s in Downtown closed in April, with officials blaming reduced foot traffic and other issues.

Wiener World, a hot dog shop and deli on Smithfield Street that’s been a Downtown lunch hotspot for decades, nearly joined the fast-food exodus.

Owner Denny Scott told news outlets in April he was considering shutting down because drug dealing and overdoses proliferated near the shop.

A month later, the city responded with additional police officers patrolling nearby, and business has been steady since, he said. Business hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels, but Downtown is improving.

“I am not going to give up,” Scott said. “I am going to keep fighting because I believe in Downtown.”

There is reason to believe Downtown is on the path to recovery. Comparatively, it is outperforming many of its peers.

The California-based Institute of Governmental Studies measured recovery for 62 North American cities by analyzing cellphone usage in fall 2019 compared to fall 2022.

Downtown Pittsburgh’s recovery quotient was 64% — meaning cellphone usage in 2022 was 64% of that it was in 2019. This was outpaced by leaders like Salt Lake City (135%) and San Diego (99%), but Pittsburgh fared better than many of its peers, beating out Cincinnati (57%), Detroit (49%), Kansas City (47%) and Cleveland (36%).

Though his speech in April was full of critiques, Demchak also exuded confidence in a recovery. He said PNC is committed to Downtown Pittsburgh. He just wants everyone to join in.

“We are here, we will help fight for this,” he said. “We have to get on the same page.”