Rebecca Flora Coolidge Park with fountain and carousel pavilion in Chattanooga, Tenn. Click photo for larger image.

There's already a passel of groups in Pittsburgh dedicated to promoting good civic design, from the American Institute of Architects to the Riverlife Task Force to the Green Building Alliance. So why does the region need another one?

"What Pittsburgh was lacking was a really strong focus on what impact design could have on the city," said Mary Navarro, a senior program officer for the Heinz Endowments, which initiated the Pittsburgh Civic Design Coalition two years ago and quietly incubated it with monthly meetings for its eight participating groups. Its mission is simple: to raise awareness of the value of good design.

This week, the coalition goes public as it rolls out a report on Chattanooga, Tenn., where 30 of its members visited last fall and which it sees as a role model for good civic design and how it can translate into solid economic development and better quality of life. The coalition plans an educational trip -- a "civic design exchange" -- every year or two, funded by the Heinz Endowments, to cities it believes Pittsburgh can learn from.

After a federal air quality survey rated Chattanooga the most polluted city in America in 1969, it spent the next decade working to meet clean air and water standards. In 1984, the "Vision 2000" planning process began, in which 1,700 residents shaped 40 goals for the city, including the creation of a pedestrian-oriented, downtown riverfront.

Over the past 20 years, Chattanooga has transformed the banks of the Tennessee River by shrinking a four-lane highway to two lanes, building a $75 million aquarium and creating a 10-mile recreational greenway on both sides of the river. Chattanooga established connections to the water with pedestrian paths and a free electric shuttle, and linked the riverbanks by converting to pedestrian use a bridge that now hosts the popular "Wine Over Water" wine-tasting festival.

The coalition will tell Chattanooga's story Wednesday evening in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. More than 200 civic leaders and design industry workers from around the region have been invited.

Since 1986, Chattanooga has parlayed $12 million in public-private investment into $1.5 billion in private development. But Ms. Navarro is quick to point out that in the past decade, Pittsburgh has seen almost $4 billion in new development, including PNC Park, Heinz Field and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The coalition wants to build on that investment and design success.

And with the coalition, Ms. Navarro said, the city's design community will be able to speak with one voice on design-related issues, giving each group more clout than it would have on its own. The coalition comprises the AIA, Carnegie Mellon University's Urban Lab, Community Design Center of Pittsburgh, Green Building Alliance, Heinz Endowments, Pittsburgh city Planning Department, Riverlife Task Force and Sustainable Pittsburgh.

"There are other initiatives in the country that are finding strength this way," said Anne-Marie Lubenau, director of the Community Design Center. While there is no direct model for the Pittsburgh Civic Design Coalition, Ms. Lubenau said, "the goal of collaboration and consensus is apparent in several examples from other cities," including New York's Municipal Art Society, Philadelphia's Design Advocacy Group and Chattanooga's Planning and Design Studio.

That studio is a one-stop center run by the regional planning authority; it established design standards and placed all of the approvals developers need under one roof, at the Development Resource Center.

The coalition identified five "lessons learned" from Chattanooga: Define a clear and consistent regional vision; invite community participation in planning; establish a one-stop design center for technical assistance, problem-solving and approvals; create "portable planning" in targeted neighborhoods to catalyze new and rehabilitated housing; and emphasize good design as the foundation of sustainable economic development.

The last one is the special province of the coalition. Ms. Navarro said the group will take a leadership role and speak out on design issues, as Riverlife did in 2002 when it championed a new, more transparent barrier for the Fort Pitt Bridge deck (now known as the "Pennsylvania barrier") and when it campaigned in 2004 for local zoning control over gambling casinos, which the state's gaming law had pre-empted. The state Supreme Court struck down that provision last year, making casinos subject to local zoning.

"Pittsburgh is not starting from scratch," Ms. Lubenau said. "That we have eight organizations already working on it is in itself really remarkable. We feel there is momentum building and we want to take it further with this coalition."

The coalition does not have a budget, but the Heinz Endowments have contributed about $100,000 toward its activities to date and will continue to fund its projects as they arise, Ms. Navarro said.

The coalition's Chattanooga report will be available on Wednesday on its Web site, www.pghdesigncoalition.org.