Pittsburgh finally is getting it right by building housing Downtown and big sites ready for development in the suburbs, moves that should attract young people and business to the region.

That was the message of Robert Ady, one of the nation's premier site selection consultants, who told an audience at the Imperial Business Park yesterday that more and more young people are gravitating to downtowns to live and hang out.

"They're finally waking up, aren't they?" Mr. Ady said of the various plans to build more housing Downtown. "Younger people ... they want to live in the Downtown area and they want to interface with other young people in different occupations."

Using the Major League All-Star Game as bait, the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance brought Mr. Ady, and five other consultants who help companies find locations, into town for three days to tour development-ready sites near the airport and other parts of the city.

They paused long enough yesterday to take part in a panel discussion at the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties Developers' Showcase to discuss the Pittsburgh region's strengths and weaknesses.

Mr. Ady said Downtown housing is becoming one of the keys to keeping and attracting both young people and businesses to a region. He said when he visited Pittsburgh five years ago, the lack of Downtown housing was an "area of concern."

But that has changed more recently with the plans for new housing in the Fifth and Forbes corridor and other areas, including the 700 new units proposed in the Cultural District.

Mr. Ady, president of Ady International Co., said Pittsburgh is one of many cities spending time, energy and money trying to redesign their downtowns to lure younger people.

While the hundreds of condos and apartments under development Downtown are "OK," they're still "not enough" in Mr. Ady's mind. He said Chicago has about 6,000 units of housing downtown.

"My goal in Chicago was to have Chicago 24/7 and you could never go to a restaurant without a reservation. Now that's a successful city," he said.

Mr. Ady said the region also is "100 percent better" in terms of the availability of development-ready sites, those basically in move-in condition with water, sewer, electrical and gas service and other infrastructure in place.

About 2,300 acres of industrial space currently are under development in Allegheny, Beaver and Washington counties. All are located within a 30-minute drive of Pittsburgh International Airport. The preparation of such sites has been a priority for the region's political leadership and the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.

Mr. Ady said the lack of development-ready pads still ranks as one of the top reasons for a city or region to be dropped from consideration when looking for a site.

Despite such improvements, the Pittsburgh region all too often still doesn't make the short list with many companies.

One reason, said Jim Bruce, president of Business Facility Planning Consultants LLC of Atlanta, is Pittsburgh's "lack of aggressive growth" in recent years. A lot of businesses want to settle in cities that are growing quickly with lots of young people and big labor pools.

"Pittsburgh is not considered a growth area," added Saul Grohs, partner in New Jersey-based Location Advisory Services Inc.

That said, Mr. Bruce believes the region should play to its strength -- its reputation as one of the country's leading centers for robotics, high technology and medicine.

Those types of industries will help to attract younger people and more business, even if Pittsburgh isn't ranked among the top 10 coolest cities.

"If you want to go into robotics, Carnegie Mellon is unsurpassed," he said by way of example. "At least in that particular area, this is the hot place to be."