The city's Urban Redevelopment Authority went to bat for two slumping business corridors and got $24,500 from the Urban Land Institute to take steps toward reviving them.

The local council of the institute has teamed with the URA and Carnegie Mellon University's Urban Lab to conduct an inventory and plan for the use of vacant and underused land on Herron Avenue in the Hill District and lower Brighton Road in the North Side.

"Both corridors are in need of rebuilding," said Michael Stern, chairman of the institute's Pittsburgh district council and an architect at Strada studio. "They are separate projects with commonalities." Both were once commercially viable, and now are pocked with blight and vacancy.

Two groups of students from the Urban Lab and the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management have begun tours and interviews on the two thoroughfares -- on Herron between Bigelow Boulevard and Centre Avenue and from North Avenue to Kirkbride Street along Brighton.

Each has a stakeholder coalition to help shape redevelopment, and community forums for residents' input are scheduled. Brighton Road's next session will be today from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Children's Museum. Herron Avenue's will be today from 5 to 8 p.m. at the John Wesley African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

Rebecca Davidson Wagner leads the coalition of North Side interests that draws from four neighborhoods, three in historic districts. Brighton serves them all without belonging to any of them.

Structures dominate the corridor, with a variety of successful businesses. Many are old brick row houses that have been abandoned, boarded up or left open. Some commercial buildings are vacant, weathered and unsightly.

"We hope a planning document can come out of this" as a directorate to developers, said Ms. Wagner, "so that we can say, 'These are the uses we want and the type of footprint you need to fit.' It'll be interesting to see what people come up with. We want to play off what we already have going for us."

Mark Knezevich, a project development specialist at the URA, was discussing plans with Herron Avenue stakeholders before the call for proposals. URA land beside the John Wesley AME Zion Church sits on an old mine that had filled with water and flooded the church's basement.

One project the Herron coalition wants to pursue is using mine water, diverted into french drains, for geothermal heating and cooling, said the Rev. Calvin Cash, pastor of the church and head of the coalition.

Between 75 and 100 gallons of water pour through the drains every minute, and the coalition's ultimate goal is to use it, and possibly springs known to exist in the Hill, for geothermal energy throughout the neighborhood.

"We want to bring this back as a green corridor," said Mr. Cash, whose church is 111 years old, "and to make affordable housing even more affordable."

Two years ago, Charles Johnson, a soil scientist for the state Department of Environmental Protection, noticed orange water pooling on the sidewalk in front of the church and put a note through the church mail slot, asking if there was water in the basement.

Mr. Cash called to report that there was, about 18 inches, and the DEP and Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon teamed to chart the mine, drain about 40 million gallons of pooled water and divert the flow.

George Wazlaff, an environmental engineer for the U.S. Department of Energy, has been helping the coalition find a location for a geothermal demonstration, and the first hope was the church, as part of a restoration effort. The group went after a state energy-harvest grant, but with cleanup costs and mold remediation, the cost was prohibitive, said Mr. Wazlaff, adding, "we're still looking for one."

Heat pumps are 20 percent to 30 percent more costly to install, but they save 70 percent on energy bills, he said.

The URA's director of business development, Robert Rubinstein, said the Urban Land Institute's expertise and status could put this project onto a faster track for the kind of funding substantial change requires.

"We expect this to be more than an academic exercise," Mr. Rubinstein said.