Downtown Pittsburgh's newest renaissance is hard to miss. Head to lunch in Market Square and it's all around you.

Yesterday afternoon, before summer's daily deluge, the square's perimeter of outdoor seating was packed with diners. There was a buzz coming from the new Moe's Southwest Grill, where the walls were opened to let the outdoors in. Buon Giorno Cafe was waiting for work to be done on its second-story terrace. The Dunkin Donuts that replaced an off-color junk shop had a line of customers waiting for iced coffee. A gelato vendor scooped dessert from his refrigerator cart.

All of this is in addition to other Market Square merchants, some of them fixtures for decades, that routinely feed the Downtown work force: the Original Oyster House, Jenny Lee Bakery, 1902 Landmark Tavern, Nicholas Coffee, La Gondola, Primanti's, Starbucks and more.

The noise and menace of the buses are gone and, soon, so will be the pass-through traffic on Forbes Avenue (although motorists will still be able to drive around the edge of the square). Last week the city's historic review commission approved a $5 million makeover that would replace the streets, curbs and raised tree planters with a flat surface paved with brick, terrazzo and granite. "This will be a miniature Parisian square," one commission member said.

That continental look will be no coincidence, given the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership's "Paris-to-Pittsburgh" program, which has leveraged a $1 million grant from the Colcom Foundation into business renovations on the square that open restaurants to the outside.

With major construction a stone's throw away at Three PNC Plaza, the vacant G.C. Murphy store and four buildings renovated by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, Market Square stands to become only more vibrant. Then Downtown may have that happy problem once described by Yogi Berra: "No one goes there anymore. It's too crowded."