Initial development generated some 1,258 jobs.

The estimated public utilities costs (roads, parks, parking garages, renovation of the Moncon connecting bridge) are $66 million. The projected financing of this comes from, among others, URA funding, the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, private garage funding and tax increment financing (TIF). $98 million in planned private investment is expected at the SSW.

With such numerous multi-disciplinary facets of Brownfield redevelopment projects, it is imperative to bring a comprehensive, integrated strategy into the management operation.

The project manager here has a gigantic job. He must: formulate a set of criteria for selecting Brownfield development sites (which must have a probable end user), determine funding sources, evaluate marketability, supervise public relations and sales campaigns, estimate potential business and residential clients, balance potential income with real and potential cost, balance the concerns of developers and those of the community, evaluate potential community benefits, such as jobs, tax revenues, aesthetic improvement, increased property values, community services, human health impacts, and target and prepare as priorities for redevelopment those sites which are likely to bring the greatest benefits based on socio-economic factors (via GIS database).

Above all, the project manager supervises and is responsible for all activity. The SSW project, according to Williams, “will always be under our supervision as development issues are controlled by disposition agreements with each developer.”

Frequently, as in the case of the Southeast Works Project, local authority officials work with and coordinate undertakings by both public and private entrepreneurs. They deal with a variety of people, including local and state government officials, economic development agencies, community development organizations, as well as private developers, state agencies, lawyers and investors – bankers and prospective purchasers.

“Without an aggressive agenda from all the necessary state and local agencies, the Southeast site would still be underdeveloped,” maintains Gerald Williams. “At the same time,” the project manager insists, “the community plays a huge role here and is responsible for spearheading the direction.”

The importance of community participation was brought home at a Brownfield site in Lansing, Michigan. An unsuccessful effort to revitalize the Lindell Drop Forge site was due to the fact that neighbors had not been consulted, not brought into the process. To this day the area remains an untouched Brownfield site.

On the other hand, in another instance in Lansing, where neighborhood citizens cooperated and contributed input, the cooperation became a two-way road: developers installed a 24-hour telephone line which enabled callers to ask questions and hear construction updates, and by which residents and businesses were informed when they would see construction in their vicinity. These neighborhood community groups are proactive in bringing in new businesses and retaining current ones.

Many a landscape blemish would still be there creating health risks and making the area environmentally and socially detrimental to surrounding communities, if not for vigorous Brownfield redevelopment.

Because Brownfield redevelopment reverses neighborhood deterioration, revitalizes urban neighborhoods, and creates sustainable community improvement, many cities are successfully fostering such redevelopment within their boundaries.

Pittsburgh's enterprising initiatives and URA's energetic execution of revitalizing devastated, unsightly areas into aesthetic communities constitute a dramatic example of how a city rolled up its imaginary sleeves to create a new reality and a new image of itself.

Lili Eylon is Czech by birth, has lived and been educated in the U.S. She now lives in Jerusalem where she is a freelance journalist. Her work has been published in the International Herald Tribune, a German daily, as well as technology publications worldwide.

David Clendenen is the Editor of AECVision and Managing Editor of AECCafe.com

Comments? Feedback? Click here to tell us what you think about this topic or if you have additional information you'd like to share on this subject!