National Interest in Town Square

by Breen Masciotra, Community Design Center of Pittsburgh


This fall, East Liberty Development, Inc. (ELDI) approached the New York-based Project for Public Spaces (PPS), a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that help build communities. This has led to excitement all around as PPS plans a visit to Pittsburgh.

	Photos from Get Down! Bazaar Photos: Sarah Rossbach, Town Square Planning Team

In 2004, ELDI and Town Square stakeholders hired Semple Brown Design, with funding from the Local Initiative Support Corporation, Community Design Center of Pittsburgh and PNC Bank, to develop a vision for the heart of East Liberty. Town Square, at the center of the neighborhood’s business district, presents some interesting challenges to creating a vibrant retail corridor and a bustling public space. The plan looked at how to address those issues from a physical design perspective.

At the completion of this plan, the committee of stakeholders continued to meet regularly, focusing now on programming. The idea was to start to create some visible activity and change in Town Square while ELDI formed a strategy to implement the physical plan. The programming committee established “Get Down! with East Liberty” as the theme for its programs and then hosted an artists’ bazaar and outdoor movies all summer long. The intent of programming is to attract and retain markets, to give some purpose to the public space and to thereby inform future design.


ELDI contacted PPS to get feedback and ideas about past and future programming on Town Square. ELDI conveyed the many activities, on multiple sites, that the programming committee had created and PPS provided positive feedback and encouragement for the committee moving forward. Of fortunate coincidence, PPS was looking for a public space with a church at its node and East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Town Square provides the perfect circumstance.


PPS staff will spend a day visiting East Liberty in early 2006 and meet with local groups- ELDI, the Town Square Programming Committee, the Neighborhood Improvement District Committee and city-wide organizations such as the Civic Design Coalition.


All anticipate a very fruitful visit with the nationally renowned Project for Public Spaces. Hopefully, this will be a shot in the arm for Town Square, providing expertise to inform the development of both the programming and physical changes anticipated there.

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