After an early afternoon meeting with 980 Liberty Partners principal Mathew Shollar, Heinz Endowments President and CEO Grant Oliphant told the New Pittsburgh Courier there is no compromise position to be taken between the two on the future of the August Wilson Center. He confirmed this position in a letter sent to Shollar immediately afterwards.
The tentatively approved 980 Partners’ bid for the bankrupt center would pay off mortgage holder Dollar Bank and unpaid contractors. The foundations’ lower bid would not, but they are backed by Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, state Attorney General Kathleen Kane and the Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority.
“There’s been this notion out there that there’s a middle ground between our positions—there really isn’t,” he told the Courier. “They have an end goal to build a hotel. We have an end goal to preserve the August Wilson Center, not just a piece of it. And those goals lead in very different directions.”
The meeting took place just a month ahead of an Orphan’s Court trial on the validity of deed covenants the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority says prevent the 980 Partners from developing a hotel on the site. Should the restrictions be upheld, 980 Partners will pull out, and the bankrupt center will go up for sheriff’s sale Oct. 6.
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