'Your City Could Be Better': What DC Needs To Know About Pittsburgh's Plan To Fix Downtown

This is your city could be better because it could be, I'm David Floss, if you love

your city and still complain about it, you're in the right place.

Meghan Harris, what's the favorite thing you used to be able to do in downtown Pittsburgh

that you can't do anymore?

Sober up at the McDonald's and walk down to the point and watch the sunrise.

Not a thing.

Can't do it anymore.

McDonald's was gone.

No fast food in downtown, not like that.

It was also proximity.

It was so close to like a big state park where you get to watch everything and that fountain

David is incredible.

It literally shoots like 200 feet in the air.

But no fast food.

No fast food downtown.

Well that might be, that might be heaven for some people.

Like a subway, but it's not like the Inindynstein brothers.

It's like the fancier FastFood.

I wanted like the food of the people.

So Pittsburgh's downtown, no fast food, but it will have the NFL draft in April.

And the NFL draft is coming to a city where there are a lot of vacant storefronts downtown.

Like a lot of American downtowns, Pittsburgh's downtown is struggling.

50 vacant storefronts in the downtown Golden Triangle area of the city, so the city has been

trying something different, which is offering bargain basement rents to anyone who will fill

a space.

The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership is managed to fill over 30 empty stores and anticipation

of the draft with more set to open in the six weeks before the draft occurs in late April.

So small business owners are getting a chance to show off their wares for a fraction of

the rent they might pay somewhere else.

And in other spaces, there's live performances and art.

So I'm joined by the host of CityCast, Pittsburgh, Megan Harris, to talk about this interesting

attempt to revitalize a downtown.

So Megan, what are some examples of businesses that have come into downtown that weren't

there before in this in this moment?

Yeah, I feel like I see a new one every time I walk around because our space where the

CityCast team works is downtown.

One new favorite is like a coffee shop, for example, they've got a superhero theme.

It's very femme forward.

They're part of something called a rent abatement program through this partnership.

There's another cafe.

I believe there's a sushi restaurant.

It's got a nice rooftop.

I've never been there on a day nice enough to enjoy that rooftop, but I've seen it from

a distance.

There's a flower shop, craft stores.

It's a bunch of different things and they've all really popped up like in earnest over

the last few weeks.

So these are smalls.

This is not like a big new sacks.

There's not a huge Walmart or something to small businesses.

Correct.

I mean, I think that thing of like getting a massive tenant, like a department store, people

aren't opening new department stores.

So this is them trying to figure out all the little spaces that are a little bit easier

to fill.

What can we do to make them look nicer, make us look a little bit busier and more happen

in before a big event?

So because I haven't been in downtown Pittsburgh for a while, has your downtown felt dead and

does it feel less dead now?

Does it feel different?

It's never felt dead to me, but I also work down there and I think that's a different

thing, right?

Like there's their neighborhoods that are much more busy at night and neighborhoods that

are very busy during the day.

Downtown is a daytime neighborhood by and large, except in our cultural district, which

is where like all the big historic theaters are where you can go catch a performance, a

play, one of the big musicals that's streaming through.

That's different.

But I think trying to marry all of those things, like all of the business, daytime activity

with the nighttime activity that remains a challenge, basically everywhere.

So why did Pittsburgh hollow out?

I mean, I guess you're not saying it has fully hollowed out.

You're not saying it is like completely vacant, like, you know, a ghost town, but why

has it not as bustling and busy as the good people of Pittsburgh would like their downtown

to be?

What are the forces that have caused that?

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's some of the same stuff that's happened everywhere, right?

Like, I mean, we'll go way, way back.

There's post-war suburbanization.

There's the highway policies that hit in the 60s.

There's deindustrialization, which if you've ever been to Pittsburgh or aware of our legacy

as the steel city, that one hit pretty hard here in the 70s and 80s.

There's the collapse of the brick and mortars through the 2000s.

And now we have the effective COVID where like people just aren't going back to work

and force in the way that they used to.

And I'm for one, at least I'm very excited.

The way our city is trying to rally around that and like figure out a solution that makes

sense and like our current reality, not the one they wish maybe still existed from 30

years ago.

Right.

So it's interesting.

I mean, I think it depends on what kind of space you want and how big you need it to be.

So the way the rent abatement program works that you get 50% off your total rent up to $2,000

for up to 12 months.

So it gives you a chance to like try this thing for a set amount of time, but your lease

has to be at least three years long to qualify.

So you're getting it for the first year, but you're committing to being in the neighborhood.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah.

So like if your rent, your total rent is $4,000, you have hit the sweet spot, my friend,

that is the most amount of bang for your buck you can get.

But like for that roughly average, like rental price downtown right now, that would be like

a 125 square feet.

That's pretty tiny.

But for a lot of shops, that's more than enough to get the job done.

So it just kind of depends where you fall on the scale.

So what you're saying is like if you look at market price, that $4,000 a month, which

is where you'd get the $2,000 abatement, it gets you about 125 square feet, which is

just like one room.

So if you want a bigger storefront in your pain, $6,000 or $8,000, you're still only getting

$2,000 abated.

Correct.

And again, these are for folks.

The way the rent abatement program works is you have the concept.

You know what you want to do.

You have found the space where you want to be and you've also found your landlord and

you two have already negotiated this.

Now you are going to this organization and saying, hi, hello, please help cover the cost

of this check for at least the next 12 months.

And it's working for a lot of people.

Like they had to pause the program.

They got so many applications.

That is so interesting.

And in the period before this existed because I didn't realize it's stretched for three

years.

So these are people are really making a commitment.

It's not just like, I'm going to take advantage of this, this thing.

I'll get the NFL draft money and I'll just be in here for six months and then I'm gone.

It's like they actually have to commit to quite a significant time period.

Yeah.

And there are some leases among the original goal was they were trying to fill 20 storefronts.

They got such a ridiculous outpouring that they're like, okay, maybe we can raise that

number.

So now the numbers 50 headed into the draft and they think they're going to meet the

goal.

And some of these leases, they said, not a ton, but a few have signed leases for 10 years.

Why is that such a good deal?

I mean, I guess 50% off your rent is a good deal.

But not if it's, you know, if it's one year on a three year lease, that's not an enormous

shift in your finance is why did you think it's that it brought attention to something?

It just made, it was just like a little push to get people to try this.

I think it's a combo of things.

So like this rent abatement program is working in tandem with another one that the same organization

the Pittsburgh downtown partnership is doing, which is a pop up program.

And that one comes with a matchmaking component.

So for six to 12 month period, this is kind of I think what you maybe had in mind for

those you raise your hand say, I have an idea, I want to be downtown.

They're like, okay, cool, we think you'd work here.

We know the guy will negotiate the lease for you will help figure this out.

So these two things are working in tandem to help people test their idea, test the market.

Make sure the market is ready for them.

Make sure that they are ready to own and operate a small business.

At least for the ones that are signing these longer releases, right?

Like, I mean, running a small business is incredibly difficult.

Like, yes, three years is not that long, but also like it is as an entrepreneur.

Like that, that's so much time of your life.

And that first year is like enormously difficult.

If you can make it through all the hiccups of getting that worked out, hopefully you're

two and you're three get easier, right?

And just so I understand it, the landlords are not eating any cost of this.

The cost has been borne by the Pittsburgh downtown partnership.

Who is paying for that?

Yeah, so it's a, we have a lot of these here in Pittsburgh, but the, and the PDP is funded

a variety of ways, but these programs rent abatement and pop-ups, they're being funded

by a combo of corporate and private philanthropy.

So organizations are coming and be like, we like things like this.

They let the PDP act as like the liaison and decide who, who gets what?

Hi, CityCast listeners, this is David Plott's, I'm the CEO of CityCast, but I also have

another job.

I'm one of the hosts of the Political Gap Fest, Slates Politics Podcast.

Every week I get on mic with my co-host Emily Baselon and John Dickerson, and we talk

about politics and a lot more about other things that we care about.

The Gap Fest has been going for more than 20 years because of three of us love talking

to each other, and we have an amazing community of listeners.

If you like the open-hearted, curious way CityCast approaches cities, I think you'll

like the Political Gap Fest too.

Stream it on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast.

Did it take the NFL draft happening for this to happen?

Is this caused by the fact that you were going to have a big, flashy event in downtown

Pittsburgh, or was this in the works anyway?

Parts of it were in the works anyway, and truly I was so skeptical of this.

If you've ever listened to CityCast Pittsburgh, you know it.

There are so many projects happening right now, and I feel like the draft became the

catalyst for a lot of it, like the deadline, everyone needs a deadline, right?

Our governor comes to town, Josh Shapiro, who a lot of folks know because he was in contention

to be Kamala Harris' vice presidential candidate.

He comes to town and waves this little flag and says, we're going to rally $600 million

to revitalize Pittsburgh's downtown.

That's great.

It was already committed, already part of projects.

It's the way government counts money where they pick the projects and they're like, it

all counts towards the thing.

That's great.

It's wonderful.

But I truly wondered, is this just putting lipstick on a pig?

Is this just going to fall apart the moment the party's over?

We shoved our junk in the closet while companies come in, but I don't think that's the case.

The more I've dug into this, it seems like people were really committed to this program

long before.

The top-up program, quietly, apparently, operated, going back to 2010.

It's been reconfigured several times.

It's kind of ebbed and flowed and they ramped it up like a year or two before we even knew

we were going to have the draft.

So I think it's like a really cool moment where we were doing the thing.

You were doing the good work already.

And then suddenly you have this big event, this deadline to get it all done.

None of this would be done by April if it weren't for this.

Right.

Right.

That's so interesting.

It compels people to have to act by then.

It also draws attention to it.

It puts eyes on it and that makes it cooler and public.

People want to participate.

They hear more about it.

They hear about it on CityCats, Pittsburgh.

So tell me a little bit about why the draft helps downtown.

So I did not realize this, but the numbers that you're projecting are astonishing, something

like half a million to maybe 700,000 people who are attending or participating somehow

in the draft in Pittsburgh.

That's just attendance.

Not even pretty like those are people they physically expect to be within the footprint

of the draft.

Yeah.

That is crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think so too.

I mean, to put it in context, our city population, like just the city of Pittsburgh,

is 300,000 people.

So this effectively doubles close to triples it, depending on how close these projections

actually are.

And I think the interesting thing about all of this is not just the people who are going

to physically be here because a lot of them will be like football fans already.

You know, from data in previous drafts like in Detroit and in Green Bay, a ton of them

are going to already live in our region, like within driving distance, you know, because

we've got so many D1 college sports programs and other things you're already.

But what's cool is that we get this spotlight on television.

There are a ton of people that are going to watch it.

I think the projections for this year, 55 million viewers over the course of that three days.

And that's the piece that I think is worth banking on because Pittsburgh is beautiful.

It's affordable.

It's a really fun place to be.

And I don't think it's on the lips of a whole lot of people.

And this gives them a chance to like actually talk about these cool things.

Huh.

So is it taking place in the same footprint where the rent abatement is?

I mean, is it like the draft is going to be on the street in front of the coffee shop?

Or is it not like that?

Not exactly.

But I do think these are things that can like work together, right?

So our two stadiums, I think somewhat uniquely are really in our city center, the PNC

park where the pirates play baseball team.

And then the Steelers play at Accresure Stadium.

Most of the stuff is going to be around there, like the small businesses around in the

front, like, but there's only like two or three hotels that are within like close walking

distance in the North Shore, so just across that river.

So it means that a ton of people are going to be downtown because there are so many more

hotels over there.

And we know that like from Steelers games, from pirates games, from penguins games, because

there arenas just on the other side of the river, like when any one of those things have

anything going on, people are constantly flooding through downtown.

They want stuff to do.

They want to have a nice meal.

They want to look at pretty things.

And I think all of this makes that possible.

Going back to the rent abatement, the revitalization of downtown, give me the optimistic case

that this program and the enthusiasm that's come around the draft leads to a permanent

change in the state of Pittsburgh downtown.

Yeah, I mean, this is optimistic, maybe idealistic.

The pop-up piece is short term, but I think it gives people a chance to get to know their

neighbors, to have these conversations, to try to be entrepreneurs, many of them for

the very first time.

And if it sticks downtown, that's great.

But maybe they move to one of our surrounding neighborhoods.

Maybe they go just outside the boundary of the city, and they bring those crafts, that

knowledge, that experience, and those relationships there.

I think the relationship piece is foundational to this, because I mean, as all of us know,

things get done faster when you know a guy, I think that's a piece of it.

And then the rent abatement part, like that's long term.

Even if it's only three years, maybe that builds momentum for the spot that's next to

yours, for the ones that are 10 years, like, gosh, I'm stoked about that.

And I actually don't know which are which, like, I can't wait till we get the final

list of some of these businesses and organizations, because again, we're just getting a trickle

at this point, the folks that are more established and more willing to talk to the press about

their experience so far.

But like, it's going to be so cool to walk down the street, like, come out of my office

and see stuff happening, people moving around.

And hopefully that continues after 4pm, because that's the challenge.

Right.

So that's the optimistic case.

Is there a pessimistic case where this doesn't work?

I mean, I think we're back to the pig and the lipstick.

Like, I just, I hope that there's more to this than just the people coming in to visit.

And I think there is, you know, some of the other projects I mentioned, like, they did

a huge overhaul of a historic square where there used to be like markets and farmers markets

and things like that.

And it's been that recently, but like, the ADA standards for the cobblestones around

it were 30 years out of date.

Now you can walk around it.

And it's going to be a really lovely place to be and to experience life.

We're getting a playground downtown for the first time ever.

Those pieces will outlive the draft.

But the storefront part, I don't know, running a small business is really hard.

And it's increasingly hard with like, you know, all the supply chain stuff with just the

business thing.

Like, I don't want to discount that.

And I hope that they get the support beyond April.

So last question here, Megan, before we get to our fun final segment, what can listeners

in other cities take away from this conversation about Pittsburgh's downtown revitalization to

make their own city better?

And I guess, and to actually get more specific on it, is there any part of this revitalization

that was citizen driven rather than like kind of the elite driven?

Yeah.

I mean, I think there's always that question, right?

Like, how much of it is happening with us versus to us?

I think their relationship piece is the one that is the most transferable.

If you can build coalition within your own neighborhood, within your block, within whatever,

like wherever your community is, it's easier to get a thing done.

And the louder you can be as a community, the more you can advocate on behalf of the thing

you want.

So like, if that's like a composting ordinance, that's great.

If it's a program like rent abatement in a major city neighborhood, that's awesome.

And all of these things happen as ideas.

And the ideas make more sense when you have people behind them and you have people willing

to take a bet because they know you, they know you and you want a bet on this.

So they want a bet on it too.

Relationships.

Build the relationships.

Sorry.

It's corny, but I think it's true.

No, I think it's true.

No, I don't know if you heard the first episode of your city could be better when I talk

to Sean McPherson or city cast Twin Cities host about sort of the organizing that takes

place in the Twin Cities around the resistance to to ice.

And one of the things he's, when I asked him that same question and what could people

in other cities do?

And he was like, you know, just get on a signal chat with your neighbors, not about, you

know, fighting ice or opposing policies.

You don't like just a signal, a chat where you and your neighbors can interact.

And that in itself is a valuable thing that those ties that you're building are valuable

and you're kind of saying that you're, you're giving the small business commerce version

of that same answer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I'm proud to be in company with Sean McPherson.

He's elite.

Okay, Megan Harris, let's now turn the tables.

Let's go to a different kind of question.

Thanks to listener Patrick O'Hare, we have a name for the segment word on the street, word

on the street.

Oh, word on the street.

So the question for today's word on the street, Megan is, and I teed this up for you

because you're from Pittsburgh and people from Pittsburgh are second only to people from

Boston and they're just sanctimonious unbearableness around their sports, isn't it?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

How does one handle a neighbor or a friend who refuses to support the local sports teams?

I think I might be in the minority, but this does not bother me at all.

Don't come.

Don't pay attention.

I don't care.

The one pro tip I give people who truly could not care less about local sports is that

if you check their schedule, that is the time you want to go to the grocery store.

That's important.

It's good to know.

You need to know for traffic patterns and you need to know when every grocery store in

the city of Pittsburgh is about to be empty because they're all watching the game.

You don't think there's an obligation if you live in Pittsburgh to know, okay, Mike

Tomlin, you know, Mike Tomlin's leaving his coach or we've signed, we've signed Brett

Farve.

I mean, or Aaron Rodgers, you signed Aaron Rodgers.

Okay.

Yeah.

He got there.

Aaron Rodgers.

It was like decrepit old, decrepit old marine babe.

Different order back.

You don't think there's an obligation to know that and to be just be in the game around

that?

Not really.

Honestly.

I mean, it's not an obligation.

I do think that there's a business of sports element to this that like is tangible to all

of us.

We are taxpayers.

Like three River Stadium was demolished 26 years ago, which means that the least for

the two arenas I was just talking about, PNC Park and Acresure, they're about to come

up in 2030 and 2031.

Do you want to pay for a brand new one?

Do you want to deal with what DC just did and have the team threaten to leave?

If you don't pay attention to sports at all, like if you don't care about the Aaron Rodgers

of it all, that's chill with me.

But as a taxpayer, you absolutely should care where your money's about to go.

And do you want that to go to Art Rooney to get a new roof for a potential Super Bowl,

which will be so much bigger of a deal than the draft ever could be?

You know, I'm going to disagree with you.

This is not.

I think you, when you have a sports team, that's good.

I think I live in a city where all the sports teams Washington DC, all the sports teams

right now are pretty dire and so no one really pays much attention to them.

But if you have a sports team that's good, I actually think there's kind of a civic obligation

to be excited about it and to engage with it so you can have conversations.

You can talk to somebody on the bus about like, you know, the Jersey they're wearing and

you can, that good, you were just talking about the connection, that good feeling of connection.

It's a universal language sports, not like not for everybody, but it's like broadly.

It is a place where people can find agreement.

And I think it is kind of an obligation as a citizen of a city to connect and at least

be aware of what's going on with the team and be able to sort of, you know, have a smile

when you see somebody who's who's wearing the Jersey or know who to call a jog off today.

I'm with you.

I think you have a much more rich and fulfilled experience as a Pittsburgher if you

were aware of our sports teams and their victories, their complete losses.

But I also don't begrudge anybody for being like, nah, I'm tapping out.

I don't, I could not care less about the high paid men's sports of it all.

Maybe if Pittsburgh had more women's sports representation, this would be a different

thing.

Fair, fair.

And DC, actually, that in the last few years, the only good teams have been the women's

soccer team and the women's basketball team.

And there's a lot of, there's a lot of love in the city for them.

I've been banging the drum for a WNBA team in this town for a long time.

The mayor has changed.

I don't know how the new mayor feels about that.

I'll save that one for another episode of the CityCast.

Megan Harris, host of CityCast, Pittsburgh.

Thanks for coming on.

Your city could be better.

Thanks, David.

That's all for today's episode of Your City Could Be Better.

I'm your host, David Plots.

Our producers were Lizzy Goldsmith, Prionka Tilvey, Megan Harris, and Mallory Falk.

Our music is by Carl Christensen.

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