Businesses bending to security for G-20 summit
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At lunchtime, Fat Tommy's Pizzeria on Forbes Avenue, Downtown, is reliably stuffed with pressed blouses and pleated Dockers -- the lunch hour is this restaurant's lifeline. Tommy Balestreire and his five employees run the Market Square establishment from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., five days a week.
But in two weeks, when politicians and journalists and protesters swarm the city for the G-20 summit, lunchtime will find Fat Tommy's windows boarded up, its owner in North Carolina catching a Pitt football game with some college buddies.
Mr. Balestreire isn't worried about disappointing his regulars. He thinks none of them will be around for the summit. "Why didn't they have it on a weekend?" he asked.
When the leaders of the world get to Pittsburgh, the Steel City might seem more like the Still City.
Employers of all sizes -- from Mr. Balestreire's five to insurer Highmark's 5,000 -- are curtailing their workforces in anticipation of G-20 headaches. And more than a few Downtown workers who could come in may try not to, since they expect a hassle commuting during the two-day summit.
Some observers worry that the city -- heralded as a "showcase to the world" by President Barack Obama when it was announced as the summit site -- instead will look like a deserted metropolis.
As president and chief executive of the Sen. John Heinz History Center, Andy Masich hopes G-20 visitors aren't cheated of a true Pittsburgh experience. "I'm afraid tumbleweeds will be blowing around," he said.
It's hard to pin down a solid figure on how many of the city's 17,000 businesses and 144,000 workers will be trying to maintain business as usual.
However, some companies are certain to incur significant relocation costs.
The Reed Smith law firm has an attorneys' office in Pittsburgh and a customer service center Downtown on Stanwix Street (a mile from the David L. Lawrence Convention Center).
The lawyers will work from home, as will most of the service center's 230 employees. The customer service center building "will be open, but we're assuming the street will be effectively innavigable," said chief of office services Pat Hiltibidal. Sixteen employees will move to a secondary site that usually sits empty north of the city.
Then there are the 12 or so key people -- employees in accounts payable and client evaluation -- who will travel from Pittsburgh to work at a Washington, D.C., office. Ms. Hiltibidal said Reed Smith is paying for the shuttled crew's two-night stay in a hotel that is about 250 miles from the convention center.
Businesses looking to ease employee commutes without shutting down are allowing employees to work from home.
One of them is Kopper's Holdings Inc., which has about 100 employees working Downtown. Just one employee is to be in the firm's Seventh Avenue office during the G-20, said Michael Snyder, director of investor relations. Besides a lonely systems administrator, the rest of the employees at the carbon compound and treated-wood products producer will be stationed at home or at plant locations outside Pittsburgh.
H.J. Heinz Co. has offices in PPG Place, which is outside the security perimeter set by the Secret Service, but it, too, expects difficulty. The Heinz employee parking lot is in the Strip District, near the convention center, so "many" of the food company's 1,000 Downtown employees will start telecommuting on Wednesday before the summit begins, said Michael Mullen, vice president of corporate and government affairs.
Even Highmark, the state's largest health insurer, plans to trim its Downtown workforce from approximately 5,000 to "several hundred" for the conference's two days, said spokesperson Aaron Billger.
Pittsburgh's attitude toward G-20 preparations has oscillated in the past few weeks, said Michael Edwards, president and chief executive of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. The city hit a fever pitch of worry last week but that seems to have ebbed as more information about public transportation and security becomes available, he said.
Mr. Edwards is all for businesses staying open -- "human interaction is what makes Downtown such a creative place" -- and sees as an increasingly upbeat attitude toward the summit's impact. "There's been a bit of a thawing in terms of what impact this will have on workers Downtown," he said.
Some local organizations are trying to make sure the typical vibrancy of Downtown is maintained for the motorcades.
The Sen. John Heinz History Center in the Strip District sees itself as a place foreign journalists can experience Pittsburgh without walking too far from the convention center. The history center's experts have been providing journalists "from Japan to Canada and every place in between" with photos and information on the city's history, said Mr. Masich.
Still, the history center will see some staff curtailment during the event, as only the communications, security and customer service staffs have to brave the traffic, said Mr. Masich. Employees choosing to stay home can use personal days.
First Published September 11, 2009 12:00 am
