Published: June 10, 2008 11:47 am            

A RIVER'S ROAD, DAY THREE: Some are still missing the boat

HOMESTEAD, Pa. — When the soot settled for the last time in Steel Valley, residents were left with unemployment, dwindling population, drugs and crime.

While Homestead was forced to declare Act 47 bankruptcy in the early ’90s (from which they emerged just over a year ago), West Homestead raised taxes several times to make municipal ends meet.

At the turn of the 20th century, the combined population in Steel Valley was about 40,000. Now, the area is home to about 18,000. Though thousands of shoppers now line sidewalks connecting a bevy of riverfront boutiques, on the other side of the tracks in there’s another kind of downtown — one dotted with boarded-up storefronts.

It is the side of Steel Valley that hasn’t recovered — the side of the tracks that the day shoppers from more affluent suburbs don’t usually see.

Its state is bleak enough to have people like Charles Starett of the region’s Steel Valley Enterprise Zone Corp., two specialists with the Brownfield Center at Carnegie Mellon University and members from the office of U.S. Rep. Michael Doyle, along with half a dozen others, holding meetings to draft a development strategy.

“It had been a national historic district, and nobody knew how to really administer it,” Starett said.

In 2000, the Steel Valley Enterprise Zone Corp. drew up a plan that led to an increase in available aid money and various historic renovation, housing and Enterprise Zone tax credits and loans.

As a result, six other experts from organizations is as many states assembled Friday to interview community stakeholders before retreating to brainstorm and submit their conclusions on the future of what are now called “The Avenues.”.

“After the waterfront, that brought attention here, it brought traffic, it brought some vitality. We’ve been able to start turning around this business district. And then the present council of Homestead and West Homestead got together ... so Carnegie University and their Brownfield Center approached the boroughs (and formed the Avenues committee).”

Areas of concern identified by community members include:

• Historic designation

• Leveraging the waterfront development

• Race relations

• Changing internal and external perceptions

• Understanding the local market

• Multi-jurisdictional decision making

It is a list that could just as easily have been drafted for the Tonawandas.

The group’s mere presence lends itself to a belief that, despite the roughly 30 percent additional tax money the waterfront generates, a figure that is expected to increase steadily for the next 15 years as incremental tax financing pays off bonds and maintenance fees to the developer, there are really two Homesteads — one on the waterfront, and another south of the tracks, in the old town.

“The Avenues are Sixth, Seventh and Eighth — the three avenues that we’re trying to bring business into. When we were kids growing up, instead of saying we’re going down to Eighth Avenue, we just said we’re going down to the avenue,” Esper said.

Today, shoppers from Pittsburgh don’t have to cross Eighth Avenue, where nearly half of the storefronts are boarded up or vacant.

Traffic ramps built onto and off of the Homestead Bridge lead customers from the heart of the former millgrounds right back over the river and into Pittsburgh’s outlying splendor.

Of course, there are jobs.

Not the kind steelworkers used to have, which Esper said paid and compensated almost everyone who got laid off, providing them with ample pensions.

Mostly they are now managerial gigs, waiters and waitresses — tips and the uncertain hustle of the service industry.

But then again, the valley had nothing after the mills closed.

“Now all those jobs go away with full benefits to (for example) T.G.I. Friday’s,” Starett said. “And a lot of these kinds of places (are) stores where kids are making minimum wage, tips, no benefits. So, there’s been a tremendous loss of revenue in the area. There are a lot of old-timers who don’t like this here, they say steel should still be made here, but ...”

Steel Valley communities are still rife with a level of economic hardships, drug abuse and structural blight south of the railroad tracks and up the hill where the divorcees of U.S. Steel’s broken marriage still live, with the glow of commerce situated just below them, along the water.

Projects like The Avenues, increased tax revenue, grants based on historical designation and conversion of Brownfields all are ways planners hope to finish a full turnaround and create a sustainable economic future.

Contact reporter Neale Gulleyat 693-1000, ext. 114.

        

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