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Task force envisions three rivers flowing with life force for fun
Sunday, September 24, 2000 By Patricia Lowry, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
For centuries, the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio have been working rivers -- highways and sewers in the service of westward expansion and a multitude of industries.
The Pittsburgh Riverlife Task Force thinks it's time to have a little fun.
The 40-member task force, committed to reshaping the city's waterfront, is challenging Pittsburghers to think of their rivers in new ways -- not only as places to work, but also as places to live and play.
Yesterday morning, the task force's consulting architectural firm, Chan Krieger & Associates of Cambridge, Mass., presented its ideas to the city's architecture and planning community at a forum at Carnegie Lecture Hall, Oakland.
Cosponsored by the task force and the architectural center, the forum was a chance for Alex Krieger and his team of architects, planners, landscape architects and artists to show their peers the plan-in-progress.
At this stage, the ideas are just that -- dreams of how cluttered riverfronts marred by scruffy industrial buildings and surface parking might be transformed and united with new housing; extended trails and park land; inlets, coves and marinas; water taxis; riverboat restaurants; river overlooks and more. "I would like you to imagine a Pittsburgh like it never was," Krieger told the group.
Over the summer, Krieger and his team gathered ideas for waterfront improvements from the public, telling the community, at one point, "Don't be afraid to dream BIG."
In the coming weeks, those big and little dreams will continue to be winnowed, polished and shaped into a plan. Krieger's team will return to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in November to gather public reaction. By March, the plan will be backed up by analysis, suggestions for feasibility studies and ways to get it all done, including where to find the money.
"It's not just going to be a wish list," said task force director Davitt Woodwell. "It will be a plan with implementation strategies."
For funding, the group will turn to that old Pittsburgh favorite, the public-private partnership so successful in fueling Renaissance I.
Although costs have yet to be determined, the plan calls for significant public improvements, including a water-based transportation system, pedestrian connections linking the rivers and their bridges, public art along the river edges and the lighting of landmark bridges and new district icons.
Water transit is key
Much of the plan is about making connections in a city where rivers divide and define neighborhoods, and highways and railroad tracks separate residents from the rivers' edge. Water transit is perhaps the single most important element in the plan, one that would transform Pittsburgh's rivers from barriers into conduits and link neighborhoods such as Washington's Landing and the South Side with the convention center, new stadiums, Station Square and other attractions.
Krieger's plan also suggests that as Pittsburgh remakes its riverfronts, it also should establish a new identity. For decades, Point State Park and the Golden Triangle have been symbols of Pittsburgh's ability to remake itself. The task force plan broadens the view, creating a new symbol based on the confluence of the rivers.
Krieger calls it simply "the Y."
"Imagine 'the Y' as your nautical Central Park," Krieger said yesterday.
The "Y" would be defined by a series of illuminated structures of various designs and purposes, some built on the riverbanks and some floating along the edge. Massachusetts artist Duke Reiter, a member of Krieger's team, has made drawings to suggest what the structures might look like. The two most prominent would be at the base of the Duquesne Incline and on the North Shore, between the Carnegie Science Center and new Steelers stadium. Reiter's design shows a "Point Monument" -- a tall shaft that opens to form an illuminated V during river events.
The design is purely conceptual; ultimately the plan calls for these structures to be designed by one or more artists, perhaps chosen through a national competition. But it illustrates the team's desire to create something with symbolism and movement.
The plan also would create a Port of Pittsburgh with a no-wake zone from the 31st Street Bridge on the Allegheny and the Birmingham Bridge on the Mon to just beyond the West End Bridge on the Ohio.
"It would foster a better mix of uses and make the river safer for smaller boats," such as sculls, kayaks and canoes, said Chan Krieger architect Alan Mountjoy, the project manager.
A new river 'triangle'
The center of riverfront activity would shift westward, to an imaginary triangle whose points are defined by Point State Park, a landing for boats and water taxis (and perhaps a natatorium) at the bottom of the Duquesne Incline, and a mixed-use development and marina between the West End Bridge and science center.
"It creates a critical mass of events and attractions at the confluence. Those two developments would mark the inhabiting of both shores now not accessible," Mountjoy said.
The planned expansion of the science center is seen as an opportunity to create a water-oriented context for the center -- part of a new, mixed-use development to the west, on land owned by John Connelly, who also is a Riverlife Task Force member. It could comprise hotels, housing, parking, office and retail space; promenades and parks; a cove and a marina; a water taxi landing and docking for riverboat attractions, accommodating Connelly's desire for future riverboat gambling.
Krieger said yesterday the challenge for the task force will be merging developers' interests with the desire for riverfront access and public open space.
At the "Duquesne Incline Landing," an elevated walkway would be built over West Carson Street and the CSX tracks to connect the landing with the incline and Mount Washington.
"The landowners have gotten together to talk about what they can do to make that happen more in the short term than long term," Mountjoy said.
Before any full-scale development gets under way, interim activities could take place on barges, with landowners providing access and parking.
"It's a way of activating the edge without having to control the land," Mountjoy said.
For riverfront land owned by The Buncher Co. in the Strip District, between the Fort Wayne Railroad Bridge and the Veterans Bridge, the Chan Krieger plan suggests a long-term treatment that continues Fort Duquesne Boulevard and the riverfront trail into the Strip.
It identifies a hotel site as well as public open space to be shared by the convention center and Seagate Technology Building, now under construction.
"We're supportive of the work being done," said Tom Balestrieri, president of The Buncher Co. "It needs to be further evaluated and further refined. I'm sure over time we'll end up with a product that's satisfactory to all parties."
In the meantime, Krieger will focus on more immediately achievable goals, such as the illuminated icons and trail connections.
Krieger considers Point State Park to be Pittsburgh's crown jewel and envisions the jewel becoming the centerpiece of a necklace.
The park would be linked to the Allegheny Riverfront Park and a redesigned Mon Wharf. The city has had Environmental Planning and Design, a Downtown firm with a national reputation, look at ways to retain parking at the rear of the wharf but open up its river edge to restaurants, marinas and water transit. In Krieger's plan, a footbridge between the wharf and Point State Park would wind through the pylons of the Fort Pitt Bridge.
That and other bridges within the "Y" would have better pedestrian access, with stairs and/or ramps that also could serve as viewing platforms during river events.
Krieger would extend existing neighborhoods toward the river by creating riverfront housing in keeping with the types of housing already in those neighborhoods -- luxury housing below Mount Washington, for example, and reuse of older buildings, as well as new market-rate housing in the Strip. Houseboats could be moored along the Mon on the South Side.
"We're looking for housing opportunities everywhere along the river," Mountjoy said. "But housing is not as profitable as other kinds of uses, so we're trying to create incentives for developers to create housing as a piece of the mix in other kinds of developments."
The plan also will suggest what happens to the Pittsburgh Riverlife Task Force when its 18-month mandate ends in March.
Does it dissolve or, "Does it morph into something else? Does it oversee implementation? Does it turn into a commission or authority?" Woodwell asked.
Those are some of the options now being explored.
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