Tom Balestrieri is raring to go.

For years, a prime Strip District riverfront parcel owned by the firm he heads has served as a parking lot for shoppers, revelers and commuters. But Mr. Balestrieri, the Buncher Co.'s chief executive officer and president, doesn't want it to stay that way much longer.

"I'm not a young man and I want to see it happen on my watch. From our standpoint, if the right project comes about, we're poised to go," he said.

The city is hoping so. It has singled out the Buncher property, stretching from 16th Street to 21st Street, bordering the Allegheny River on one side and Smallman Street on the other, as a "major focus" of a proposed master plan aimed at transforming the riverfront from Downtown to Highland Park.

Rob Stephany, executive director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, which is seeking design teams to help craft the plan, sees the Buncher property as the "catalytic piece of the equation" for the entire six-mile stretch of proposed redevelopment.

"You've got essentially undeveloped property adjacent to Downtown, the cultural district, the convention center. There's probably not many people you would talk to who wouldn't acknowledge that what happens there sets the tone for what happens elsewhere," he said.

Mr. Balestrieri said Buncher is pleased the city is taking the lead in developing the master plan. It is keenly interested in developing its Strip District property, he said. But there could be a catch.

To be successful, any master plan, he said, must include the URA-owned produce terminal, an iconic 140,000-square-foot building that served as the city's shipping center for many years.

Part of Buncher's property runs behind the produce terminal to the riverfront. Mr. Balestrieri said the firm has rejected "numerous opportunities" to redevelop the property in the past because it did not know what would happen with the terminal.

"Until we know what the future of the produce terminal is, it's been challenging for us to decide whether to accept something back there," he said.

Mr. Stephany said the terminal would definitely be part of the master plan. The URA has been working with Neighbors in the Strip to lease about 12,000 to 14,000 square feet of the building to local retail vendors to fill vacancies beside the produce wholesalers. There also are plans for a demonstration kitchen, a stage area and classroom space.

Buncher in the past has expressed an interest in cutting the produce terminal into sections to connect at least part of the Strip's street grid into its property behind the building. But that plan has run afoul of some tenants and preservationists who see it as a Strip landmark.

Mr. Stephany said there may be an opportunity to open up part of the property in a way that wouldn't affect the wholesalers "if the master plan calls for that." Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation would oppose any effort to cut up the building, President Arthur Ziegler said.

"I don't think you should take a building that is quite handsome architecturally, unique in its size and configuration, and a symbol of the history of the area and continuing in use, and cut it into pieces," he said.

Rather than chop up the terminal, designers could place pathways to the river on both sides of it, he said.

Becky Rodgers, executive director of Neighbors in the Strip, said whatever development occurs between 16th and 21st streets must "blend in" with the existing amenities.

"I think what gives the Strip its national appeal is that it is uncompromisingly authentic. It's home to more entrepreneurial, mom-and-pop-type businesses than most other neighborhoods. What can make it better and not take it down?" she said.

Of the six miles of riverfront targeted for redevelopment, the Strip probably has been the most studied. Four years ago, graduate students at Arizona State University won an Urban Land Institute competition by developing a master plan for the Buncher property.

It featured loft-style housing inspired by the Strip's warehouse buildings as well as retail and office space, all built around a fan-shaped plaza that connected with the riverfront. There was also a marina near the plaza and a proposed water taxi to link people to PNC Park and Heinz Field. It recommended that the produce terminal be converted to retail.

While the ULI analysis could be a "good jumping off point" for the Strip component of the master plan, Mr. Stephany said, the broader study area could prove to be just a bit more challenging.

Overall, the city has identified some 544 parcels in the study area, not exactly a recipe for consensus. And unlike SouthSide Works, the North Shore between PNC Park and Heinz Field, and the Pittsburgh Technology Center along Second Avenue, neither the city nor its agents control all of the land.

Still Mr. Stephany relishes the opportunity before him.

"Welcome to community development, right? I don't think the city needs to be reborn by having the city or one of its authorities controlling all the land," he said. "I think multiple stakeholders can share a vision and key stakeholders can start to implement it and get it going."

In some respects, turning vision into reality may not be as difficult as it would seem at first. One reason is that there are large tracts of land under the control of a handful of developers, and that land could serve as building blocks for the rest of the corridor.

Buncher, for instance, has control over the Strip District land and additional property upriver. The URA owns the 21.7-acre former Tippins International Inc. site in Lawrenceville. The Regional Industrial Development Corp. of Southwestern Pennsylvania is redeveloping the former Heppenstall steel mill adjacent to the Tippins site.

The city is marketing 14 acres in the Strip between 29th and 31st streets, now home to the tow pound and other buildings, for redevelopment. Chuck Hammel, president of the Pitt Ohio Express trucking company, controls about 27 acres of real estate in the master plan area and is co-owner of the Cork Factory residential development.

"There are a lot of significant things you can weave together to redefine this corridor," said state Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park.

Mr. Hammel said he would like to move his company's operation from its location at 26th and 27th streets in the Strip to another site and develop housing along the river. His company is "very interested" in the Tippins site but was told by the URA it doesn't know what it will do with the property.

"If I had a place to move the trucking operation I would get serious about the plans and do something quickly," he said.

Mr. Hammel, however, believes the scope of the proposed city master plan is too broad and could inhibit development from taking hold quickly. He believes it should be broken into two segments, one from 11th Street to 36th Street, and another for property beyond.

"We can get a plan finished so that development can begin. I think it can be done a lot quicker if it were cut into pieces," he said.

Aaron Stauber, principal and president of Rugby Realty, which owns property at the corner of 21st and Smallman streets in the Strip, welcomed the proposed master plan.

He said it could help developers tailor their projects to complement each other rather than stepping on each other's toes. A master plan done more than two decades ago to guide development in the city's cultural district has paid huge dividends, he said.

Mr. Stauber hopes to turn his Strip property into a 45,000-square-foot retail center that would feature a drugstore, perhaps a bank and some type of food service designed to complement other Strip retailers and restaurateurs.

Whether he would be open to other uses under a master plan "depends on where we are" with the proposed development, he said.

Mr. Stephany conceded that implementing the master plan probably is a 20-year endeavor, but he added, "We'd love to see a lot of the tone established in that first decade."

One of Mr. Stephany's main goals in the planning is to see neighborhoods, cut off from the river by industrial development, reconnected to the waterfront as much as possible.

"I think our big general excitement about this is what happens to city neighborhoods if they're intimately connected to the rivers again," he said.

He also wants to make sure new development becomes not an island unto itself but an impetus to spur growth in the broader neighborhood, using the South Side and the SouthSide Works complex as an example.

Even if it takes 15 to 20 years, Mr. Ferlo sees nothing but promise in the master planning endeavor.

"It's exciting. It's the next area of big development for this administration and a lot of stakeholders," he said. "This can really be a signature project for Pittsburgh."