Friends shook their heads when Lisa and Ed Hegedus opened a cafe in downtown Greensburg nearly a decade ago. Yesterday it was looking more and more like a shrewd investment.

Continuing a renaissance for the downtown, Seton Hill University outlined plans for an $11.5 million University Center for the Arts. The 50,000-square-foot complex on Harrison Avenue will house the school's music and theater programs, studios, offices and classrooms.

The center will be within a five-minute walk of the campus of the private liberal arts school. Several buildings along the west side of Harrison will be razed for the project and ground could be broken this fall.

"This is another great day for the whole City of Greensburg," said city planner Barbara Ciampini, one of 70 administrators and merchants who attended a breakfast meeting yesterday where they viewed detailed drawings.

The center will be financed by the college, aided with a $5 million state grant. Plans call for a block-long complex with a 28,800-square-foot theater arts building with a 300-seat flexible theater. That would be linked to a 21,500-square-foot music hall with a 600-seat auditorium. The center will later include space for start-up businesses and a school for students of tourism.

The center would be a jewel in the city's already glistening and growing cultural district, developed by The Westmoreland Trust.

Some merchants have expressed concern that the center will eat up more of the city's coveted parking spaces. Every weekday more than 1,000 people visit the Westmoreland County Courthouse.

Greensburg Mayor Karl Eisaman and JoAnne Boyle, president of Seton Hill, assured merchants the new complex will bring about 130 additional spots, at two existing lots near the train station, on Ehalt Street at the foot of Harrison, and/or the Bell garage on West Otterman.

Lisa Hegedus, who catered the breakfast buffet, said she is also concerned that the state-subsidized facility could end up costing merchants business. Her business and more than $350,000 investment would be hurt, for example, if the university puts its own restaurant in the center.

Boyle assured all yesterday that "the university is not interested in becoming a business. We just want to create a community that benefits all of us."

Boyle's tenure has seen much growth on campus. As she unveiled the arts center drawings, workers minutes away were constructing the university's new Recreation Complex, a 44,000-square-foot facility that includes a gymnasium and indoor running track.

In March, Boyle announced plans for the school to start a football program.