Help the City envision the future of Pittsburgh’s open space, park, and recreation systems.

Garland Park – photo by Katherine Camp

For the Open Space, Parks, and Recreation component of the City’s comprehensive plan process, City Planning is asking everyone to fill out this survey: http://exchange.planpgh.com/portal.  There is one version for adults and one for youth. By sharing your opinions about Pittsburgh’s open space, park, and recreation resources (including what types of programs, facilities, and opportunities are important, where they should be located and how they should be maintained), you will help the City make informed decisions about future vacant land, open space, parks, and recreation efforts. Tell your friends and family – the survey will be open until August 31st. Printed copies of the survey are available from City Planning as well.  Click here for contact information.

While you’re on the PLANPGH Exchange website, you can register to be notified of additional opportunities to give your opinions and public meetings or events for PLANPGH, the City’s Comprehensive Plan process.

In the spirit of the Waffle Shop, which is both a place to eat waffles and the set of a reality TV show, we now have Kubideh Kitchen: more than just a place to get a delicious Iranian sandwich.

Kubideh Kitchen is the first in a series of Conflict Kitchen features. Every 4 months, Conflict Kitchen will feature food from a different country with which the U.S. is in conflict. It is attached to the Waffle Shop and runs out of the same kitchen, serving up to-go kubideh sandwiches with freshly-made barbari bread, spiced ground beef, and fresh mint, basil, and onion.

The Tehran/Pittsburgh YouTube Mix

On Saturday, July 10th, Conflict Kitchen (in Pittsburgh) and Sazmanab Project (in Tehran) will present a live screening of videos curated directly from YouTube posts shot both in Tehran and Pittsburgh. A back and forth format will utilize the vast and idiosyncratic resources of YouTube to present first-person video accounts that reflect on the daily life of each city. The forty-minute screening will be followed by a live Skype conversation between attendees in Pittsburgh and Tehran.  The event will take place next door at the Waffle Shop, 124 S. Highland Ave., at 11:30 a.m. (EDT).

KUBIDEH KITCHEN is open every day from 11am-2pm and on Friday and Saturday nights from 11pm-3am.

Check out their blog at www.ConflictKitchen.com.  Kubideh Kitchen has also been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.

Some seven years in the making, the city and developer Mosites Co. have closed on the financing for Target’s proposed East Liberty store, virtually guaranteeing its construction.

The retailer is expected to break ground on the 143,000-square-foot store — one of only a few Targets in the country with two levels — next month.

Construction will take about a year, with the opening scheduled for July 2011. A formal announcement is expected today.

Target will join Home Depot and Whole Foods Market as anchors in a bustling East Liberty commercial corridor that not too long ago was a poster child for inner city blight. Together, they “will change the shopping patterns of many city residents,” said Steven Mosites Jr., Mosites Co. president.

Rob Stephany, city Urban Redevelopment Authority executive director, sees the development as part of the “re-regionalizing” of East Liberty, once one of the largest commercial centers in the state.

“Home Depot, Whole Foods, the restaurants, they are already regional attractors and I think Target will amplify that posture even more,” he said.

Key components of the financing for the $46.8 million project include a $20 million loan from M&T Bank and $12.6 million equity investment by PNC facilitated by new markets tax credits.

Mark Minnerly, Mosites’ director of real estate development and a partner in the project, described the PNC investment as a “gap filler” that enabled the store to proceed.

The URA supplied $14.1 million for site development, including a $10 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development loan and a $2 million HUD grant.

Under the arrangement with Target, Mosites was responsible for securing the financing for the store. Target will be liable for the repayments through a 29-year lease.

The fact the developer was able to secure financing for a retail store in a challenging credit environment is a tribute both to Target and East Liberty, Mr. Mosites said. “All in all, I think [lenders] felt really good about Target’s credit and the location,” he said.

Completion of the financing marks a milestone in a journey that began 10 years ago when a master plan designated the five-acre site bordering Penn Avenue, Penn Circle and Broad Street for a department store.

Target became the “focus” of those efforts about seven years ago, Mr. Mosites said. He described the courting as “herculean” given the recession and the decision by Target to re-evaluate all new store openings.

“Getting Target to invest in East Liberty was an intense strategic effort that could not have happened without so many valuable partners who believe in the economic transformation of our city and of East Liberty,” Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said in a statement.

For the rest of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette Article click on the link:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10166/1065616-53.stm#ixzz0r3GDmCX7

Sojourner MOMS House, a project of permanent housing for formerly homeless women and their children in East Liberty, has had many exciting additions recently.  On Tuesday July 7th, the sight received new trees thanks to a grant written by the Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest.

The trees will fill in the streets lacking canopy.  Along with this tree planting, the MOMS project has a community garden and is working on creating a playground.

For more information, read the Pop City article.

Safety practices were essential on the job site of the last East Liberty highrise, imploded on May 17th, 2009.

On Tuesday, July 7th at East Liberty Presybterian Church, the Section 3 Job Training Initiative through East Liberty Development, Inc and the Coalition of Organized Residents of East Liberty, in partnership with the Eastside Neighborhood Employment Center hosted an OSHA training session for 15 local residents and construction workers.

Participants received trainingand certification for the following areas: general safety, “haz com“, materials handling and storage, tools, electrical, excavation, fire protection and prevention, floor openings, stairs, ladders and scaffolding, personal protective clothing & lifesaving equipment.

This course reduces job-site accidents, provides proof of Construction Safety & Health Training and assists employers with meeting OSHA and worksite safety and compliance.

The training was funded through Weed & Seed, a partnership of Mayor Luke Ravenstal, the U.S. Attorney for W. PA and community stakeholders of Larimer, Garfield and East Liberty. The OSHA Construction Safety & Health training hosted on July 07 at the Kingsley Center was provided by the Eastside Neighborhood Employment Center and the East Liberty Job Training % Referral Initiative, a partnership between ELDI and Coalition of Organized Residents of East Liberty towards preparing residents to work among East Liberty’s development projects.

For additional information on opportunities among the building trades in East Liberty contact:

Kevin Mickens, MSW

COR/ELDI Section 3 Coordinator

East Liberty Section 3 Job Training & Referral Initiative

211 N. Whitfield Street, Suite 210

Pittsburgh, PA 15206

p. 412.661.2600

f. 412.661.2602

www.eastlibertypost.com

kevin.mickens@eastliberty.org

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This past Sunday, May 17th, the last of East Liberty’s three highrise apartment buildings came down! The 20 story building was imploded at 9 am by the Titan Company. Watch the video of the highrise going down on youtube!

Future plans for the sight include a major department retailer.

Pittsburghers, you should be proud!
In a recent article in the New York Post, Pittsburgh was #23 in the top 100 summer travel destinations! The article recognizes the old-heritage culture of the strip and the happening new arts scene of Lawrenceville.

Take a look at the article and plan a summer vacation to one of the great U.S. destinations, but remember to return home to our beautiful, happening hometown!