A plan to open what will be the only restaurant in Braddock is part of a wider strategy to ensure the dreary mill town isn't left behind when the Mon Valley's next major development unfolds.
The development is expected on the Carrie Furnace site, straddles the Monongahela River on 168 acres. Allegheny County officials hope it one day will be home to a complex of office buildings, residences, a steel heritage museum and light industrial facilities in portions of Rankin, Munhall, Swissvale, Whitaker and Pittsburgh, but just beyond Braddock's western border.
“These Mon Valley communities used to only want money for demolition from us, but now they're asking for support for new development and we love it,” said Dennis Davin, director of Allegheny County Economic Development. “The idea is to invest in Braddock and these other communities while we're still cleaning up and preparing the Carrie Furnace site.”
Braddock's inexpensive housing — the result of a population that plummeted to roughly 2,700 from a 1950s-era high of 20,000 — has attracted enterprising do-it-yourselfers and artists looking for inspiration from a gritty, industrial backdrop.
It also captivated Kevin Sousa, one of Pittsburgh's most acclaimed chefs, who moved his family there and plans to open a restaurant dubbed Magarac, named for a steel-worker folk hero. He hopes to open in a year.
The county is contributing a $500,000 state development grant to the restaurant, which would prepare take-out food for lunch and “destination” dining in the style of Sousa's popular Salt of the Earth restaurant in Garfield for dinner.
Davin said the intent of spending taxpayer money on the restaurant, housing renovation projects in Swissvale and Rankin, and other projects is to alter the approach used to build The Waterfront, a $300 million, 256-acre shopping and entertainment district that opened down river in 2002.
The Waterfront has generated tax revenue for West Homestead, Munhall and Homestead, which used the gains to emerge from state receivership in 2007, but it failed to spill new businesses into the small mill towns' main streets, as planners had hoped.
“It's nobody's fault, but private developers saw an opportunity there and the roads were developed so you could go in and out without going through the community. You really won't be able to do that here,” Davin said, gesturing to a map of the Carrie Furnace site. Similar to Carrie Furnace, The Waterfront was once an industrial brownfield, home to the Homestead Steel Works of U.S. Steel Corp.
Key to the concept's success is road access.
A $10 million federal transportation grant will allow the county to build a “flyover” ramp from the Rankin Bridge to ease access to the Carrie Furnace site. Construction is set to begin in early 2013.
On the ground level of the restaurant, business partners Asa Foster, 21, and Matt Katase, 22, both of Shadyside, plan to operate The Brew Gentlemen, a microbrewery that will be the duo's first business venture after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University.
“We're trying to create an economy here that includes Braddock rather than one that isolates it,” Foster said, referring to the potential he sees in the Carrie Furnace site. “(Our business) is not going to go anywhere if this town doesn't go anywhere.”
Jeremy Boren is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7935 or jboren@tribweb.com.
