Latest news with #RIDC
Forbes
31-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why Disability-Inclusive Customer Service Is Never A One-Size-Fits-All
Ensuring products and services are fully accessible to customers with disabilities, who potentially comprise 15-20% of the customer base in many sectors, is a nuanced endeavor requiring careful consideration and a deep understanding of personal needs. This is because different types of businesses and economic sectors can pose unique access blocks and pain points, which may disproportionately impact a particular segment of the disability community in comparison to others. The above principle was neatly encapsulated in government-sponsored research to emerged from the U.K. earlier this month. As part of its National Disability Strategy, the U.K. Government commissioned the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers to examine the access to and experience of various physical and digital products and services for people with disabilities across the country. RIDC's research involved a survey exploring the types of barriers consumers with disabilities encounter when interacting with different types of businesses. The questionnaire, which had 1,545 fully completed responses, was undertaken between September and October 2023 and was accompanied by two separate focus groups. Questions were asked about the following sectors: well-being, personal care and beauty, financial and legal services, retail, technology, sports and exercise, entertainment, leisure and hospitality, household goods and services and couriers, delivery and postal services. Overall, retail came out as the most problematic sector with 65% of respondents reporting access barriers. This was followed by entertainment and hospitality (57%) and wellbeing, personal care and beauty (49%). There was also variation depending on the type of disability a respondent had. So, for individuals with a social impairment, the financial and sport sectors were the most problematic, with 45% and 53% of respondents reporting barriers, respectively. However, when it came to technology, it was individuals with vision impairments who led the way in terms of access issues at 47%. Whilst in the entertainment sector, which includes cafes, restaurants and food services, those with dexterity issues fared worst with 68% reporting issues. People with cognitive impairments and disabilities struggled most in the well-being (62%) and household goods and services sectors (50%). Wellbeing involves services like hairdressers and beauticians, whilst household goods and services include white goods and kitchen appliances. Commenting on the findings, Angela Matthews, Director of Public Policy and Research at Business Disability Forum, which produces its guidelines on accessible and inclusive customer experiences, said, 'This research shows that businesses are not providing accessible customer experiences and service delivery. This is not only a failure of basic equal rights but is also a missed business opportunity. 'Businesses are putting up barriers that prevent more disabled people from spending more money with them. It has a direct impact on businesses – on profit and growth as two basic examples – if they are not seeking to get their product or service purchased by as many people as possible. Many businesses talk about customer and client 'needs' which are 'tailored' and 'individual' and that they are 'happy to help'. Yet these words we associate with excellent service are not being experienced by disabled people. Adjustments and accessibility here are really about removing a difficulty that gets in the way of someone spending money with a business. If the legal and moral case that every human being is valuable and of equal worth in society doesn't land with businesses, the profit case certainly should. Either way, the outcome is the same: businesses, why are you making it hard for people to spend their money with you?' In terms of recommendations, the researchers do point to several principles of best practice for including individuals with disabilities on the customer journey based on what the survey respondents identified themselves. These include the enforcement of mandatory accessibility standards, codesigning alongside customers with disabilities and enhanced disability-focused staff training. However, given that there appears to be a significant degree of variation between different disability segments, another approach could be to roll out specific programs and initiatives for different groups at different times. There are multiple examples of these going back in time. In 2023, Microsoft enabled its users with sight loss to connect to its help desk via video link and AI through a partnership with the visual interpretation service Be My Eyes. Between 2016 and 2022, Starbucks opened several stores with staff fluent in sign language. In 2020, Virgin Atlantic launched its Sunflower Lanyard scheme to discreetly identify individuals with hidden disabilities to its staff. Finally, in 2018, McDonald's UK launched a Quiet Hour initiative to assist neurodivergent customers with adjustments such as reduced lighting, background music and general noise levels. The beauty of such tailored schemes is that they provide learning experiences for fuller integration and can be cycled alongside other disability-specific initiatives to create maximum impact across the board. This combination of first-line principles and tailored schemes should produce a powerful net effect, provided that this is underpinned by authentic customer feedback and an understanding of where the pain points lie.
Technical.ly
08-07-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Pittsburgh developers aim for ‘American supremacy' with push for defense contracts
Pittsburgh could once again be a center for weapons manufacturing if all goes according to local developers' plans. Walnut Capital and RIDC are looking to steer the region, which was once the country's center of steel production during World War II, toward AI and defense tech, representatives from the firms told With developments like East Liberty's AI Avenue and Robotics Row in Lawrenceville, developers aim to attract tech companies and boost real estate activity by building up office space for tech companies. With remote methods of warfare rising in prominence, Pittsburgh has all it needs to manufacture these weapons and return to its spot as a center for wartime manufacturing, according to Joanna Doven, a strategic consultant and executive director of the AI Strike Team. 'We have unique capabilities within our defensetech companies to answer the call around building the defense technology needed to ensure American supremacy.' Joanna Doven, a strategic consultant and executive director of the AI Strike Team 'We have unique capabilities within our defensetech companies to answer the call around building the defense technology needed to ensure American supremacy,' Doven said. Critics counter that building up the region often comes with the destruction of affordable housing and breaks up local communities. Altogether, developers said, these efforts will gear the tech industry to revitalize a city that saw massive postwar losses after the collapse of steel manufacturing in the late 20th century. Revitalization means greater vibrancy, defined by various shops and businesses, mixed-use housing and art, the developers said. That's not always a good thing. Middle and low-income renters are sometimes pushed out in favor of the more lucrative office spaces and higher-cost houses that generate more money. Neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and Bakery Square, known equally for prosperity and pricing out, already exist as examples of what the city could potentially look like when its revitalization plans are complete. Lawrenceville United, Pro-Housing Pittsburgh and several startups that lease office space in the Lawrenceville Tech Center and Bakery Square did not respond to request for comment. AI Avenue's ascent sparks both optimism and concern Bakery Square, the home of over 20 AI-related companies, recently announced its new SCIF facility, which Doven said will bring in big money government defense contracts. SCIFs are essential to communicate with the feds securely when developing weaponry. Doven said she wants Pittsburgh to be the new American center of weapons manufacturing. The region can take advantage of ' about a trillion dollars in [Department of Defense] funding, ' Doven said. 'This is a historic amount, because warfare is now being automated; it's happening. It's happening in real time.' A majority of the funding to Pittsburgh companies from 'America's seed fund' — the federal programs Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer — already comes from the Department of Defense. Bakery Square's developers hope to attract even more Department of Defense contracts through its AI-focused companies, she added. Larimer, which sits directly next to the square, has also benefited from the development, according to vice chair of the Larimer Consensus Group, Deanna Davis. Larimer Consensus Group championed the Cornerstone development in Larimer and East Liberty, a nearly 340-unit mixed-income housing development. Now, they're working with Walnut Capital to build 100 affordable housing units in Bakery Square. Despite holdups, affordable housing projects in the neighborhood couldn't have happened without Walnut Capital, Davis said. 'The thing that impressed me the most with our relationship is you had a for-profit and a nonprofit working for the same common good,' Davis said. Others in the neighborhood warn that these plans are detrimental to existing Black communities and that they often erase significant symbols of local history, a neighborhood tension that corporate residents like Duolingo have already been fighting for years. Across town in Lawrenceville, another developer is aiming to reap similar defensetech gains and ultimately increase housing costs. An affordability debate near the Lawrenceville Technology Center Once a hub for steelmaking, most manufacturing plants sat empty in Lawrenceville by the new millennium. Around that same time, RIDC purchased a row house for $28,000 — today the average home goes for closer to $500,000. Now, the development firm owns 16 complexes across western Pennsylvania, one of those being the Lawrenceville Technology Center, located along 47th Street in Central Lawrenceville. A hub for robotics and manufacturing, the Tech Center tenants include heavy machinery company Caterpillar and startup support org InnovationWorks. The tenants are large drivers of federal defense contracts, according to RIDC senior vice president of business development and strategy, Tim White. The money that comes with those contracts, along with the high-paying nature of jobs around the Tech Center, bleeds into the surrounding neighborhood, he said. 'The appreciation in housing values and the vibrancy of all those restaurants is directly tied to having people with better jobs,' White said. Those jobs create more disposable income and allow people to invest in the community, he added. But that appreciation in housing value is a major sticking point for critics of revitalization. Groups like Lawrenceville United have pushed back on this, saying efforts to improve neighborhoods are making them too expensive for middle and lower-income residents who have long-standing ties to the area. White from RIDC blames city zoning restrictions, not the firm's developments. 'People owned property for decades [where there] wasn't a lot of value, and then someone comes and acquires it and allows them to sort of upgrade their lifestyle and have more disposable income,' White said. 'I think those are all positive things. But the restrictions on the construction of new housing have pushed prices up in some instances.' White is referring to a counterpoint to Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) often made by Pro-Housing Pittsburgh; IZ is a tax on new developments because it decreases potential revenue in new projects. To make up for that lost revenue, developers increase prices on new developments. Inclusionary zoning, championed by Mayor Ed Gainey, mandates a set number of new development units as 'affordable' for low and middle-income residents in neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and Oakland. The issue of zoning was contentious in this year's primary for mayor, and Gainey lost his bid for re-election. Goals to build up the neighborhoods aren't slowing down As Bakery Square continues to grow, Doven pointed to crime rates as a measure of neighborhood development. Crime rates across Pittsburgh have trended downward for decades, not just when the region's tech boom began making headlines. Neighborhoods near Bakery Square like Larimer have seen a drop in gun violence since its peak in the early 1990s, not just since Walnut Capital purchased the site in 2007. In 2016, around the time when many tech neighborhoods were taking off, PublicSource found that homicides were concentrated in neighborhoods like Crawford Roberts and Homewood. Three years later, the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Project found that areas of extreme poverty also lie directly next to tech neighborhoods like Lawrenceville. With such stark differences between communities that sit directly next to each other, the expansion of tech neighborhoods could uproot long-term residents. That's also reflected in Duolingo's longstanding presence, as many of the corporate developments nearby — like the development it holds office space in now — were once affordable housing units. In Bakery Square, Walnut Capital plans completion on its latest $850 million corporate and affordable housing development by 2027. Despite holdups over how much of the new development could be designated as affordable, community organizations like the Larimer Consensus Group are still optimistic. Davis said conflict between the two groups is part of the process. 'Did we always play fair? No, it's just like a family,' Davis said. 'You have your good days and your bad days. But once everything was presented properly to the community, it was a win-win situation.'
Business Journals
13-06-2025
- Automotive
- Business Journals
How a robotics center found a home and grew to become a symbol of revitalization in Lawrenceville
This is a story about catalytic development. Lawrenceville today is one of the hottest communities in the region, but it's had its ups and downs over the years. And when the decline of the steel industry devastated communities around the region, Lawrenceville was among them. In 2002, Pittsburgh Magazine described the area as 'more down and out than up and coming.' It was at about that time that the Regional Industrial Development Corporation (RIDC) decided to make a bet on Lawrenceville's future. RIDC acquired the 14-acre former Heppenstall Steel Company site and a nearby chocolate factory building and began the creation of the Lawrenceville Technology Center. The Heppenstall building, a 30,000-square-foot heavy industrial high-bay facility, turned out to play a leading role in the development of the RIDC project as well as in the story of Lawrenceville's revitalization and development into 'Robotics Row.' The space was built out by RIDC and became known by its distinctive exterior as the Blue Building. It is fully occupied by Carnegie Robotics, which was spun out of Carnegie Mellon University and led by CEO John Bares, Ph.D., a founding father of robotics who served as director of the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) — which was already a neighbor in Lawrenceville. Carnegie Robotics has become a globally recognized leader in its field and a catalyst for economic growth, focused on engineering and commercializing autonomous applications. Its goal from the outset has been to research, develop and produce industry-leading autonomous solutions in the U.S. — and it has been involved in notable developments in the autonomy industry. Early in the company's history, it was chosen as part of the federal government's National Robotics Initiative. In 2014, it was chosen by the U.S. Army to develop an autonomous mine detection system. A year later, it partnered with Uber to create Uber ATG — developing the first fully autonomous, on-road cars, and achieving over 1 million miles of on-road autonomy. In 2016, Carnegie Robotics partnered with industry leader in floor cleaning, Nilfisk, to create the world's first fully autonomous and safety-certified floor care autonomous mobile robot (AMR). This partnership proved to be so successful that a new company, was spun out and is now an industry leader in this category. Today, the company supports several key U.S. DoD programs, including the DARPA RACER program, where it designs, develops and manufactures full fleets of light wheeled vehicles, plus large cables tracked platforms (tanks) that are a critical component of what is the largest robotic commercial system in the world. Today, its products serve industries as diverse as defense, agriculture, marine and manufacturing, and one of its newest products — CardShark — a military-grade, body-worn computing device, has generated significant attention. With over 10 million current accumulated total hours of autonomous robots in constant operation and powered by Carnegie Robotics, the company attracts visitors from around the world and has become one of the notable symbols of Pittsburgh's new economy — and an anchor of a revitalized Lawrenceville, one of the great turnaround stories in our region. 'When we think about catalytic development, we consider several concepts,' said RIDC President Donald F. Smith, Jr. 'Is the company likely to expand? Is it likely to attract talent from our universities and from outside our region? Will other companies see some utility in proximity and open their own facilities nearby? Is it the type of company that could produce spin-offs? Carnegie Robotics has done all those things and, along with other major developments — like Children's Hospital — has been an important catalyst for Lawrenceville's transformation.' Learn more about the Pittsburgh region's economic development agenda and RIDC's leadership role in it, providing public policy insights and developing homes for job-creating companies. The mission of the Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern PA is to catalyze and support economic growth and high-quality job creation through policy advocacy, real estate development and finance of projects that advance the public interest. A not-for-profit entity, RIDC's 8 million square feet of property, in 15 industrial and innovation parks, is currently home to 118 companies that support over 8,500 jobs. More information is available at
Business Journals
05-05-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Mill 19 comes to life: Restoring Pittsburgh one site at a time
This is the fourth in a series of excerpts from "Rebuilding Pittsburgh: RIDC and the Transformation of the Steel City." For the past 70 years, the Regional industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania (RIDC) has played an integral role in rebuilding the Pittsburgh region's economy. A new book, 'Rebuilding Pittsburgh: RIDC and the Transformation of the Steel City,' written by award-winning journalist Jeffery Fraser and edited by Pittsburgh Quarterly publisher Douglas Heuck, showcases RIDC's efforts to transform abandoned steel mills and industrial sites into thriving business and technology parks – using a unique, mission-driven approach that combines economic development advocacy with community and regional revitalization. Check back here for more excerpts soon. When RIDC proposed exchanging its share in the Almono partnership for Mill 19 and another 8.5 acres alongside it, 'part of it was, 'Look, nobody else is going to come and build a spec project here under these terms,' said RIDC President Donald F. Smith, Jr. Within two months of RIDC's taking ownership, Carnegie Mellon signed up to occupy a large portion of the not-yet-built Mill 19. The university was competing for the federal government's Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute and wanted its pitch to include Mill 19 as its home. The institute was established to strengthen U.S. manufacturing by introducing innovations in advanced manufacturing technology, particularly robotics and artificial intelligence and training a workforce capable of working with those technologies. The university was awarded the institute the following year. Hazelwood Green had an anchor tenant. 'The federal government was looking for this institute to be a bridge between the tech economy and the manufacturing economy,' recalled Tim McNulty, who was associate vice president for government relations at Carnegie Mellon when the school was competing for the institute. 'Mill 19 was emblematic of what [the institute] was going to do. I'm not saying we might not have won without Mill 19, but there is no question in my mind that it contributed a great deal to our success.' MSR Design, a Minneapolis-based architectural firm, was brought in to take the lead in designing Mill 19. MSR came up with the idea of keeping the original mill exoskeleton, use it as a solar shed and build new buildings within it. Solar panels installed atop the quarter-mile roof became the largest sloped rooftop solar array in the United States. The envelope provides thermal efficiency and up to 96 percent daylight autonomy, a measure of how much of the time the building's lighting needs are met by daylight. Storm water is managed with rain gardens and infiltration. Rooftop rainwater is recycled for flushing restroom toilets. Outside, a landscaped 'ruin' garden was designed as a contemplative space that combines the remnants of old machinery foundations. The American Institute of Architects described Mill 19 as 'a bold transformation of a former steel mill that now welcomes the sustainable future of advanced manufacturing' when it awarded the building its 2023 COTE Top Ten Award for sustainable design, one of several national awards Mill 19 would earn. More important to the region's economic trajectory were the tenants Mill 19 managed to attract. Joining the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute was another Carnegie Mellon project, the Manufacturing Futures Initiative, which creates new technologies that the institute then introduces to industry. Filling out Mill 19's first building were Catalyst Connections, a manufacturing industry nonprofit and YKK AP, a Japan-based company in the building technology field. RIDC followed with another building built under the long solar canopy entire building that was leased by Motional, a Boston-based autonomous vehicle company, formed as a joint venture between Korean automaker Hyundai and Aptiv, an Ireland-based maker of vehicle electronics. RIDC would later construct a third mill building. Beyond RIDC's slice of the Hazelwood Green site, a former railroad roundhouse had been renovated that once served the steelworks, but little else was happening on the more than 160 remaining acres. Then, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, an Almono partner, awarded the University of Pittsburgh a $100 million grant to launch its BioForge, a partnership with biotech company ElevateBio, to accelerate the development of cell and gene therapies. It made another major grant – $150 million – to Carnegie Mellon, part of which went toward its Robotics Innovation Center, which would feature wet lab, testing and development space and a 50,000-square-foot drone cage. Hazelwood Green began to draw investment toward the neighborhood itself. The nonprofit community development corporation, the Hazelwood Initiative, formed a limited partnership to buy the neighborhood's middle school, which had been vacant for longer than a decade after the Pittsburgh Public Schools closed it. The money came from the city Urban Redevelopment Authority and bank loans, which for a generation or so had been hard to come by in the neighborhood. Part of the school was converted to affordable housing as a hedge against an expected rise in speculation and property values. The remaining space would house a gym, theater and recording studio for arts programming, childcare, a full-service health clinic and small business incubator. The Heinz Endowments chose Hazelwood as the first neighborhood where it introduced a 'place-based' strategy of focusing all of its grantmaking programs on a defined geographic area and working with residents to improve conditions. The Carnegie Library Hazelwood branch was rescued from closing and reopened in Rev. Boone's abandoned Hazelwood Presbyterian Church, which was renovated as an energy-efficient green building with childcare and other family services offered on other floors. The neighborhood's shuttered elementary school was bought and reopened as a charter school. The business district started a slow comeback, adding a food market, a nonprofit catering service and culinary arts training center and a popular French bakery. The 18th century house where Stephen Foster once composed was resurrected as a Scottish pub. Twenty years after the Almono partners bought the former J&L steelworks, they found a private developer to support the Hazelwood Green vision, signing an agreement with Tishman Speyer, an international developer whose projects included a Harvard University research campus in Boston and the redevelopment of Rockefeller Center in New York City. Opportunity had come to Hazelwood.
Business Journals
01-05-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
A catalytic project leads the Lawrenceville turnaround — Restoring Pittsburgh
This is the third in a series of excerpts from 'Rebuilding Pittsburgh: RIDC and the Transformation of the Steel City.' For the past 70 years, the Regional industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania (RIDC) has played an integral role in rebuilding the Pittsburgh region's economy. A new book, 'Rebuilding Pittsburgh: RIDC and the Transformation of the Steel City,' written by award-winning journalist Jeffery Fraser and edited by Pittsburgh Quarterly publisher Douglas Heuck, showcases RIDC's efforts to transform abandoned steel mills and industrial sites into thriving business and technology parks — using a unique, mission-driven approach that combines economic development advocacy with community and regional revitalization. Check here for more excerpts. In 2002, the RIDC board approved acquiring the 70,000-square-foot former Geoffrey Boehm chocolate factory in Lawrenceville and redeveloping it into a multiple occupancy building for technology entrepreneurs. The same year, RIDC acquired another industrial building nearby, the vacant Heppenstall Steel works, where the small steelmaker, known for its knives and razor blades, was among the first to close during the steel crisis. The mill, empty for more than two decades, had rusted into blight. Redeveloping the former Geoffrey Boehm building, aptly renamed The Chocolate Factory, was the first project undertaken in what would become RIDC's Lawrenceville Technology Center. Seegrid, a three-year-old company, moved in as its first tenant in 2006. Seegrid developed robots for handling materials in manufacturing and warehousing. RedZone Robotics, founded by Carnegie Mellon's Red Whitaker, made autonomous robots capable of working underground to inspect storm and sanitary sewer systems. From its earliest days, the Chocolate Factory was earning a reputation as a place where tech companies could mature and succeed. Attracting tenants proved not to be a concern. The Chocolate Factory was nearly full by 2014. And the Heppenstall Blue Building was also being readied for a promising robotics company that started in the National Robotics Engineering Center. Within two years, RIDC would build the third piece of its technology center, the Tech Forge, nearby. The energy efficient, LEED-platinum-rated building introduced 'tech-flex' design, which made it easily adaptable to a tenant's changing space requirements. Demand for such places was rising. The Chocolate Factory was intended as an affordable place where early-stage companies could mature toward expansion. When Whittaker's startup, RedZone Robotics, outgrew its space there, RIDC moved the company to its Thorn Hill suburban industrial park north of the City of Pittsburgh. When Seegrid outgrew the Chocolate Factory, it moved to RIDC Park West near Pittsburgh International Airport to expand its business. New startups looking to launch replaced those that departed. Among them was Carnegie Robotics. The company was founded in 2010 by John Bares, who had left the National Robotics Engineering Center to start a company that would commercialize the robotics concepts developed in the lab. Bares and a few colleagues who joined him had little financial wherewithal. 'We put up two huge office trailers outside, which were eyesores, and we took some heat over that,' said Bares. Bares was in the hospital recovering from back surgery in 2012 when he got a phone call from a number he did not recognize. 'A guy said, 'I'm Tim White. I'm with RIDC.' I'm like, 'What is RIDC?' He said, 'I heard you were looking for some space,'' Bares recalled. White asked whether Bares had considered the Blue Building that had been part of the Heppenstall Steel works and was located next door to the National Robotics Engineering Center. 'In my mind, I'm thinking the thing is the size of an aircraft carrier. What's he talking about? I said, 'Tim, we're like 10 people. I appreciate the location. It would be perfect. But we're tiny.' He said, 'Let's talk. Maybe we can work with you.' It was a pivotal moment. He could've said, 'What, you're only 10 people?' Click.' Carnegie Robotics took temporary quarters in the Chocolate Factory while RIDC built out the Heppenstall Steel Blue Building as a permanent home for the company with the high-bay space it sought. RIDC used its equity, a revolving loan fund it had established with foundation support and state funding to finance the build-out. Carnegie Robotics contributed several million dollars toward improving the building as well. The Carnegie Robotics workforce increased to some 150 employees as its client list grew, which included the U.S. Department of Defense. 'We took a risk' White said of RIDC's decision to invest in building out the Blue Building. 'But our thinking at the time was, if this company doesn't work out, these guys or someone else is going to create another company. Not every bet works. But that one did.' With renovations on the Blue Building nearly complete, Carnegie Robotics received an email inquiry from the ridesharing company, Uber, asking whether it had any interest in exploring self-driving vehicles. The two companies formed Uber ATG (Advanced Technologies Group) in 2015 and Bares became its founding director. As that deal was coming together, White received a phone call from Carnegie Robotics. On the day before Thanksgiving, 2015, the company's chief financial officer told him: 'Tim, we're going to sign this huge deal. We're going to need to be in a space as soon as possible. Can we do it in 30 days?' White responded that he 'couldn't get a permit for anything in 30 days.' But room had opened up in the Chocolate Factory. A lease was signed over that Thanksgiving weekend. They moved into the Chocolate Factory several months later and tested their technologies at a track built at Hazelwood Green. expand After Uber ATG outgrew the Chocolate Factory, Aurora Innovation moved in. Soon, the growing company moved into RIDC's Tech Forge, which it shared with Caterpillar's Automation Engineering Center, a unit of the international corporation that applies autonomous technologies to construction and other heavy equipment. In 2020, Aurora acquired Uber ATG and began generating headlines for its plan to put autonomous long-haul trucks on the highway. 'Suddenly, you have multiple big players in town with deep pockets,' White said. The city's Lawrenceville neighborhood underwent a dramatic transformation. Empty storefronts began to be filled, homes renovated and younger residents moving in. The neighborhood's rise as a hub of technology innovation and the work of community organizations, which focused on real estate development, recruiting businesses, improving the business district, reducing crime and removing blight, quickly took hold. 'Once a pass-through neighborhood known for blight and crime in the 1990s, Lawrenceville has emerged as one of Pittsburgh's fastest growing areas and is attracting millennials in droves,' the Pittsburgh City Paper reported.
