Pittsburgh's fifth great park has taken another step into being with a $50,000 Heinz Endowment grant. The money will go toward salary for a director of the Grand View Scenic Byways Park, a 270-acre tract that would connect Mount Washington's famous vista to the rest of its roots.

	Illustration: CDC; Graphic: Ed Yozwick, Post-Gazette Click here for larger image.

In the early stages of what park stewards say will be a 10- to 15-year process, City Council also approved unanimously last week ceding 16 acres of public land known as "the saddle" for the park. In recent years, developers have been hungry for those acres up and down snaking Sycamore Avenue. They are hillsides prone to sliding with tree stock badly damaged by a June 1998 tornado.

The park would almost encircle the plateau of Mount Washington and Duquesne Heights, like a crown. It would tap into existing parks on its way around the rim and connect to hillsides east of the Liberty Bridge all the way around to the West End.

"The ecological repair will take 20 years, but the park can be a reality much sooner," said Judy Wagner, director of community partnerships and manager of the Grand View project for the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. "Even as is, it's usable now."

Much of the acreage obviously suggests park land and invites hiking, albeit with brambles and face-slapping brush.

The park's cumbersome name owes to the "scenic-byways" designation the state gave three roads in 2003 -- Sycamore Street, McArdle Roadway and Grandview Avenue.

Grand View would be the smallest of the city's great parks -- Frick has 600 acres, Schenley 456, Highland 380 and Riverview 287 -- but possibly the most challenging to get under control. Parks are usually chunks of land, shaped somewhat like banquet tables; Grand View is the conga line noodling around the room. Lynne Squilla, president of the board of the CDC, said the group would like to hire the director in the next month or two.

"Each parcel has unique challenges, and there are hundreds of parcels, but they are virtually all connected," she said. "Some trails are pretty rigorous, some are more formal. Some are flat, and some follow deer paths. This could be a world-class project. There are not too many places like this anywhere."

City Council last year passed legislation designating city-owned land for the Grand View Scenic Byways Park. District 2 Councilman Dan Deasy particularly championed the park and the saddle's inclusion.

The tornado damage in 1998 prompted neighborhood action to save the saddle, said Ms. Squilla. It was also the parcel that "started the conversation" that led to steep-slopes legislation that City Council passed late last year.

The Heinz Endowments has sustained the project since 2003, and its board will consider another $150,000 grant in May, said Caren Glotfelty, environmental program director for the Heinz Endowments. Ms. Squilla said the CDC is looking for foundation, government and matching-fund support beyond Heinz.

Ms. Wagner was one of several biologists and ecologists who walked almost double the entirety of the proposed park in studying the land last year.

"Our study area was 458 acres" to allow for continuity of the ecosystem, she said. "The main slope has been abused. We made lots of recommendations on how to use native plants in the restoration process, to provide green and healthy habitat that would not grow up so tall." Invasive trees have plagued the hillsides, and people have topped tall trees that get in the way of their views, thus undermining the health of the trees and contributing to erosion, she said.

"We did a map of existing trails and steps, many that are overgrown and in shaky position. There are lots of fragmented trails, and there's been a lot of interest in linking them back up.

"The land is a challenge," she said. "Many times we wrote, 'Seek guidance from engineer.' "