New Penguins arena's footprint sinking in

They're still calling.

Two months after Burton Signs & Specialties closed its Uptown location on Fifth Avenue, confused customers still call to inquire what happened to the place.

Deb Leff patiently provides the answer when the old number rings at her new workplace in Carnegie: The 1000 block of Fifth Avenue is getting a dramatic face-lift so it can one day host even more dramatic face-offs.

"They don't realize that we're gone," Leff said Thursday from Precision Sign & Awning, which merged with the former Burton folks. "I don't think anyone realizes the entire block is going."

If people aren't yet aware of that fact, the evidence soon will be impossible to ignore.

State and local officials announced a financing agreement Tuesday for a new arena. The deal will keep the Penguins -- and, presumably, the Syria Shrine Circus and occasional heavy metal concert -- in Pittsburgh for decades to come.

Before this week, much doubt existed over whether the Pens would remain in town.

Leff, 37, of Squirrel Hill, believes the uncertainty contributed to many people having just an approximate idea of the new arena's footprint.

Yes, it will occupy the old St. Francis Central Hospital property, directly across from Mellon Arena.

But the portion of Fifth Avenue where Leff worked for more than a decade also is being razed.

The site likely will be cleared by the end of June in anticipation of the groundbreaking for the $290 million, 18,000-seat arena.

Why do so few people seem to be aware that an entire block in the heart of town is about to be demolished?

Well, preservationists aren't exactly lamenting the loss of the nine departing Fifth Avenue buildings. Their ambivalence probably can be traced to the fact that none of the structures would have inspired Frank Lloyd Wright's regret that he hadn't designed them.

The hodgepodge of buildings joining the sign store on the scrap heap include one formerly occupied by a specialty clothing store, several that housed attorney offices and another in which the Laborers' District Council of Western Pennsylvania was headquartered.

There is little reason that the loss of these structures would inspire the anger that occurred in the late 1990s, when dozens of senior citizens had to find new homes after the city blew up Three Rivers Plaza on the North Shore to make way for PNC Park.

Specialty clothing stores -- even high-quality ones with exceptionally nice suits -- just don't inspire the same degree of passion as the displaced elderly do.

Back to Leff. Asked how long she expects to field puzzled questions from her former Uptown customers, she said, "Honestly, I don't know. It's surprising, the number of calls we've gotten."

The arena is scheduled to open in fall 2009.

Perhaps by then, Burton's former patrons will have become accustomed to the fact that it's no longer there.