East Liberty, a historic retail hub that spent years in the doldrums before luring in Home Depot and Whole Foods Market, has certainly caught the attention of retailers and developers.

		Map: East Liberty development plan

Mayor Bob O'Connor told a gathering of real estate professionals yesterday that discount retailer Target is looking at locations in the area in a project being handled by Eastside developer Mosites Co. and Echo Real Estate Services, an O'Hara firm connected to Giant Eagle.

Meanwhile, another local developer has drawn up plans that would turn the former Nabisco bakery on Penn Avenue into the anchor of a six-acre mixed-used project blending about 130,000 square feet of retail space with 150,000 square feet of office space, a 1,200-car parking garage, a 120-room hotel, 38 residential units and a fitness center.

The movement comes a month after upscale discount grocer Trader Joe's confirmed plans to put its first Pittsburgh-area location into the Wheeler Paint building at 6393 Penn Ave., a former post office near the former Nabisco plant. Not far away, Giant Eagle is remodeling a grocery on Centre Avenue -- complete with places for people to live above the store.

"The momentum's been very good," said Steve Mosites, whose Eastside development along Centre helped get things rolling with the opening of the region's first Whole Foods four years ago.

Mr. Mosites was at the International Council of Shopping Centers gathering yesterday at the Westin Convention Center hotel trying to finish leasing the last 20 percent of a 90,000-square-foot shopping center being built next to the grocer. His company also is starting work on additional property just across Highland Avenue.

Though he declined yesterday to identify sites Target might consider, a plan drawn up by a New York consulting firm a couple of years ago suggested putting some kind of anchor, perhaps a general merchandise store such as Target or Wal-Mart, on or near the intersection of Penn and Centre to help connect the shops in the area.

The proposal for Bakery Square At Eastside, as the Nabisco project is being called, is preliminary and will need input from retailers who might sign on for space as well as from the community, said Anthony J. Dolan, a principal in Shadyside-based development firm Walnut Capital.

"I see us being the catalyst to make that connection from Fifth and Penn down to East Liberty," said Mr. Dolan. He said construction probably couldn't start for at least 18 to 24 months, and it has not been determined if public money will be needed.

The seven-story brick bakery was shuttered by Nabisco in 1998, restarted a year later and then closed again when a different baking group filed for bankruptcy. The structure is owned by the Regional Industrial Development Corp. Other developers have had plans for the building only to see them fall through.

Response to the Bakery Square proposal has been strong from national specialty retailers, said Herky Pollock, a CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh real estate broker. That might not have been true a decade ago before Home Depot and Whole Foods ventured into East Liberty, he said.

Now there's more confidence that residents of affluent Shadyside, Squirrel Hill and Point Breeze will venture there for the right stores. "It's probably the juiciest trade area in the entire region," said Mr. Dolan.

Still, development in the neighborhood is likely to face a few more bumps in the road.

The future of the Reizenstein Middle School across Penn Avenue from the bakery is unclear, as is that of the nearby Shop 'n Save, which is one of several stores in the region put up for sale by grocery distributor Supervalu.

A spokeswoman for the Minnesota company rejected rumors that the new Shop 'n Save, which opened last year, might be closed.