The Allentown neighborhood of Pittsburgh has endured its fair share of blight and economic downturn. Today, an infusion of state dollars and attention from community developers is reanimating the area’s partly-shuttered central corridor. LISC and others are offering half-off rents to entrepreneurs and artisans in exchange for new energy and help with public art on Allentown’s main street.
The excerpt below is from:
"Diana Nelson Jones' Walkabout: New Allentown incubator to launch makers, artists and craftsmen with half-off rents"
By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Photo by Annie O’Neill
Neighborhoods with business corridors, however underused they may be, have a built-in advantage over those without. As one of the former, Allentown is a place to watch.
The vibe there is still faint, but it’s a 21st-century vibe, and it likely will get stronger. Allentown has a fortunate location, too, a few minutes’ drive directly up Arlington Avenue from Station Square on the South Side.
During a thunderstorm Wednesday, about 20 people showed up at the former Bold Baking Co. on Industry Street to tour spaces being offered at half-price rent — $3 per square foot per year — for two years.
The building provides room for about five artists, craftsmen and other career-oriented makers based on the money available to subsidize rents. Tenants can use another 30,000 square feet to expand, said Joe Calloway, founder of RE 360, a real estate company that owns the building and is headquartered there.
The tour was part of the Industry on Industry program, another business-building incentive of the Hilltop Alliance. Hilltop Alliance is a nonprofit community development engine that advocates for a dozen hilly neighborhoods south of Downtown.
Two years ago, the Alliance began subsidizing rents to fill vacant East Warrington storefronts and offering grants for businesses to improve their signage. It attracted eight new businesses — 70 percent of the owners are women and minorities — and anticipates two or three more this year.
Industry Street is parallel to Warrington, two streets south.
In exchange for subsidized rents, tenants will participate in a public art project for Allentown’s main street, East Warrington Avenue, with the Hilltop Alliance and a committee represented by the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, Neighborhood Allies, New Sun Rising, Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC) and RE 360. Continued [+]...