Community Revitalization

The Overbrook Estates project will provide needed, high-quality affordable new senior living residential units, while innovatively integrating with an adaptively reused former school building that provides Personal Care Housing alternatives. The proposed project is a significant new investment in a highly visible, blighted section of the Route 51 Corridor. This area has experienced decades of decline and disinvestment, making this projects a crucial pioneer reinvestment in our neighborhoods. A project of this size and scale will certainly spur significant additional indirect investment in adjacent areas along the corridor – creating more local jobs and increased local expenditures at existing area businesses. 
 
The proposed project provides significant additional benefits to the surrounding communities. Most notably, the project will create access to the adjacent Overbrook Transit Station – a largely inaccessible multi-modal transit station adjacent to light rail and busway infrastructure. Via the proposed design, the project will provide transit access for both the new residents of the proposed development and the current residents of the surrounding community as well – improving accessibility for all of our neighborhoods.
 
From the beginning of the process, the project developers, Valcott Enterprises and NRP, LLC. has  worked closely with Economic Development South (EDS)  and other community organizations in the area to ensure that they could address any concerns, and maximize the positive impact of the project on the surrounding communities.
 
The Route 51 corridor is surrounded by some of the most stable, diverse neighborhoods in the County. These neighborhoods are convenient to the City of Pittsburgh, are in excellent school districts, and have some of the most attractive, affordable housing stock in the region. In recognition of these demand generators and the potential for the corridor to experience considerable redevelopment over the coming years, there have been a series of coordinated local efforts to better analyze the area and formulate strategies to address blight conditions along the corridor, and to encourage new investment.
 
One of those projects is a Zoning Overlay District. EDS is spearheading an effort to create a zoning overlay district effort that will help local communities to better address a decades-long trend of disinvestment and blight along the Route 51 Corridor. Today, the Route 51 corridor remains an important regional transportation linkage (with over 50,000 cars a day moving through the area), but has not been able to generate the reinvestment necessary to reverse the trend of blight along the corridor. 
 
For more on EDS and other area projects, please visit: www.economicdevelopmentsouth.org

 - Stephanie Miller of Economic Development