EAST LIBERTY, Pa (NewsRadio 1020 KDKA) — After more than three years of legal and political wrangling, the Pittsburgh Planning Commission has approved redevelopment of the former Penn Plaza apartments site in East Liberty.
Tuesday's 5-2 vote gives the green light to a nine-story retail and office building where affordable housing once stood.
"We're looking forward to creating jobs and taxes and eventually money here for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund," Lawrence Gumberg of developer LG Realty told KDKA Radio's Joe DeStio.
About $2 million in tax dollars from the project will go to affordable housing in East Liberty.
The building is designed to include a supermarket and Gumberg hopes Whole Foods will return to the development.
The grocer suspended its involvement in the project in 2017 after East Liberty and displaced Penn Plaza residents spoke out against the plan.
200 residents were displaced when LG Realty and Pennley Park tore the building down to make way for the development. Many struggled to find affordable housing elsewhere in the neighborhood and began a steady campaign of dissent against it. Community members called for more affordable housing, not retail and office space.
The final protest was held Tuesday before the commission's vote.
It came after a contentious years-long back-and-forth between the planning commission and LG affiliate developer Pennley Park that involved multiple lawsuits and several revisions of the plans that initially called for 200 market-rate apartments.
The $50 million first phase of the project will house 246,090 square feet of office space, 54,600 square feet of retail space and 672 parking spaces. It will stand nine stories at the corner of Penn and South Euclid Avenues, framed by S. St. Clair and Eva Streets.
It should take about two years to complete. Gumberg hopes to break ground in August.
___Jennifer Bloodworth contributed to this article.
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