The Rev. Tim Smith told visiting experts Tuesday that Hazelwood residents want redevelopment of the former LTV coke works site to jump the railroad tracks along Second Avenue and reach them.

The tracks separate the 178-acre brownfield site where $1 billion in development is planned from Hazelwood's largely hollowed-out business district.

“People here don't want to see another Homestead,” said Smith, executive director of the nonprofit Center of Life serving Hazelwood, referring to The Waterfront outdoor mall that has produced little spillover into Homestead and neighboring Rankin and West Homestead.

Railroad tracks separate The Waterfront from those communities.

“That's a development with its back turned to the community. People want to see new businesses spring up along Second Avenue,” Smith told the experts from nine cities, visiting Pittsburgh through a program of the Daniel Rose Center for Public Leadership.

Once a thriving community with more than 30,000 people, about a quarter of Hazelwood's 5,000 residents live in poverty today. The neighborhood doesn't have a grocery store, and it went about eight years without a school until a Propel charter school for children in kindergarten through fourth grade opened in August. Nearly a fifth of the neighborhood's housing units are vacant.

The tour group included architects, urban policy specialists, government planners and developers. The program sends experts to four cities each year to tackle major land-use issues.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto asked the Rose Center to analyze the Hazelwood project and come up with recommendations that include ways to improve the development's connection with the adjacent neighborhood as well as with Downtown and Oakland. The team plans to publicly issue its preliminary findings Friday.

The Rose Center also is sending experts to Omaha, Boston and Seattle.

On Tuesday, the contingent traveled around Hazelwood in a small coach bus, visiting the development site, Smith's Center of Hope on Hazelwood Avenue and the nonprofit Hazelwood Initiative. They planned to attend a community meeting on the project Tuesday night; more than 100 such meetings have been held to date.

The site is being developed by Almono LP, which includes the Downtown-based Regional Industrial Development Corp. and four local foundations.

There, the small coach bus drove into a hulking, 1,600-foot-long building known as Mill 19. RIDC President Donald F. Smith Jr. said that's where redevelopment efforts could begin.

Developers are considering “building a building within the building” while preserving much of Mill 19's industrial character, in much the same way that developers retained the gritty charm of old industrial buildings in Brooklyn and Philadelphia.

Front-runners for the space include robotics, engineering and assembly companies.

“To have a 178-acre site this close to Downtown presents a very unique opportunity that few places have, and the foundations (in Almono LP) are really putting their money where their mouths are and are determined to do this right,” said Bert Mathews, president of The Mathews Co., a commercial real estate services firm in Nashville. He's co-chairing the team of experts.

“I'm also impressed by the tremendous amount of energy and care of the people that are involved in Hazelwood on a daily basis,” Mathews said.

Tom Fontaine is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7847 or tfontaine@tribweb.com.

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