Cultural Trust to name design winner
Officials of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust this morning will announce the winner of an international competition to design a riverfront neighborhood in the Downtown Cultural District.
The Trust will make the announcement at 10 a.m. at a news conference at Seventh Street and Fort Duquesne Boulevard.
Trust officials will unveil plans for the nation’s first mixed-use environmentally friendly arts/residential development. It would be one of the largest development sites in Downtown.
A dozen teams competed to create the final plan for an area bounded by Penn Avenue, Seventh Street, Ninth Street and Fort Duquesne Boulevard overlooking the Allegheny River.
Competing teams included international developers, architects, artists, design professionals and master planners.
The Cultural District Riverfront Development, a project of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, is a six-acre neighborhood that will include residences, retail, art spaces, parking, restaurants, pedestrian plazas, parks, public art projects and connections to the riverfront.
The competition started with a dozen teams that were winnowed to four.
Team A’s lead developers are O’Neill Properties Group, King of Prussia, Montgomery County, and TREK Development Group, Oakland. The design team is led by Julie Eizenberg of Koning Eizenberg Architecture, Santa Monica, Calif. Additional designers are Antunovich Associates of Chicago; Bower Lewis Thrower of Philadelphia; and Stephen Quick of Perkins Eastman, Pittsburgh.
Team B’s developer is The Richman Group Development Corp., Greenwich, Conn. The design team is led by Winy Maas of MVRDV, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Additional architects are Leeser Architecture, New York, and Timothy Kist of JSA Architects, Pittsburgh.
Team C’s developer is Concord Eastridge of Washington, D.C. The design team is led by Stefan Benhisch, whose firm has offices in Germany and California. Additional designers are architects Alliance, Toronto; Gehl Architects, Copenhagen, Denmark; and Richard DeYoung of WTW Architects, Pittsburgh.
Team D’s lead developer is Trammell Crow Co.; the local co-developer is No Walls Productions Inc. The design team is led by Steven Holl of Steven Holl Architects, New York. Additional designers are Field Operations, New York, and Gary Carlough, EDGE Studio, Pittsburgh.
