Four teams of developers and architects have been chosen to design a riverfront neighborhood within Downtown's Cultural District.

The two-block neighborhood, which fronts on Fort Duquesne Boulevard and occupies six acres, will feature residential living with views of the Allegheny River. The site's other boundaries are Penn Avenue and Seventh and Ninth streets.

Snapshots of the four teams The competing teams of developers and architects chosen by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to design a riverfront neighborhood in the Cultural District: Team A: Lead developers are O'Neill Properties Group, King of Prussia, Montgomery County, and TREK Development Group, Oakland. Design team is led by Julie Eizenberg of Koning Eizenberg Architecture, Santa Monica, Calif. Additional designers: Antunovich Associates of Chicago; Bower Lewis Thrower of Philadelphia and Stephen Quick of Perkins Eastman, Pittsburgh. Team B: The developer is The Richman Group Development Corp., Greenwich, Conn. Design team is led by Winy Maas of MVRDV, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Additional architects: Leeser Architecture, New York, and Timothy Kist of JSA Architects, Pittsburgh. Team C: The developer is Concord Eastridge of Washington, D.C. Design team is led by Stefan Benhisch, whose firm has offices in Stuttgart, Germany and Venice, Calif. Additional designers: architects Alliance, Toronto; Gehl Architects, Copenhagen, Denmark; and Richard DeYoung of WTW Architects, Pittsburgh. Team D: Lead developer is Trammell Crow Co.; the local co-developer is No Walls Productions, Inc. The design team is led by Steven Holl of Steven Holl Architects, New York. Additional designers: Field Operations, New York, and Gary Carlough, EDGE Studio, Pittsburgh.

Among the Cultural Trust's goals is to create a residential riverfront neighborhood that is integrated with the Allegheny riverbank. The main goal is to create a place so animated by restaurants, a park, public art and shopping areas that locals and out-of-town visitors will consider it a must-see destination.

Each team has at least one developer while some have two. There are a minimum of two architectural firms on each team and some teams have as many as four.

The teams include firms with local ties, such as TREK Development Group in Oakland and Trammell Crow, which has a Pittsburgh office and is one of the nation's largest developers. Local design firms include JSA Architects, WTW Architects and EDGE Studio.

Plans are due by May 10, and each team will make a presentation at the end of that month and submit a three-dimensional model that includes the site and surrounding buildings. In June, the Cultural Trust will select the winner of this design competition.

Kevin Silverang, executive vice president and general counsel for O'Neill Properties Group, which is co-developer with TREK, said the site's location is a major factor in attracting people to Downtown.

"The Cultural District is vibrant. You have access to the ballparks. You have access to the Strip District," Silverang said.

The new development could spur the kind of residential renaissance Philadelphia has seen during the past decade on the Avenue of the Arts after completion of the Kimmel Center, a performing arts venue.

Last year, the Cultural Trust's design committee evaluated the professional qualifications of a dozen teams that were made up of architects, developers, master planners and artists. The committee winnowed that list of a dozen to four teams.

The Netherlands is a hot bed of contemporary design, and one of the final four design teams is led by Winy Maas, an architect at MVRDV, an architectural firm in Rotterdam. The developer on that team is The Richman Group Development Corp. of Greenwich, Conn.

Maas "has exhibited a real creative spirit that I thought was absolutely special," said Sylvester Damianos, a Pittsburgh architect and member of the Cultural Trust's design committee.

"We're looking for the wow factor," Damianos he said, adding that the winning design will excite people about living, working and playing in the Cultural District.

The Trust wanted to work with developers and architects because, "If you want to guarantee that something is built, we thought it best to have the architects and developers combined in teams from the start," Damianos said.

Dutch MacDonald, a principal with Edge Studio, said the Cultural Trust's process will ensure a quality project is built on the site.

The team with the developer Trammell Crow includes architect Steven Holl of New York. Mr. Holl is well-known for designing the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland, and a dormitory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"It's going to be a world-class attraction," said James Murray-Coleman, senior vice president with Trammell Crow in Pittsburgh. His team will consider building 400 to 500 residential housing units that will include rental property for young people and condominiums for empty-nesters. He estimated the project's cost between $200 million to $300 million.

William Gatti, president of TREK Development, will work with O'Neill Properties Group of King of Prussia, Montgomery County. That team's lead architect is Julie Eizenberg of Koning Eizenberg Architecture, a California firm that oversaw the renovation of the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh.

The chance to design a new neighborhood, Gatti said, is a "once-a-generation opportunity in my view or at least once every 25 years. I believe that the third renaissance in Pittsburgh will be a residential renaissance."

The fourth team includes Michael Haller, vice president with Concord Eastridge, a developer in Washington, D.C., who said his company will work with Stefan Behnisch of Stuttgart, Germany. Behnisch is known for designing green buildings, which take the greatest advantage of environmentally sound efficient heating, cooling and building operations.

Mr. Haller thinks the new neighborhood will become the linchpin of the 14-block Cultural District and provide a 24-hour environment in which people live, work, shop and play.

"The challenge will be attracting the right retail mix," he said.