Part of the Lower Hill District site formerly occupied by the Civic Arena is being prepared for a new First National Bank headquarters tower. (Photo by Kaycee Orwig/PublicSource)
As the sale of the Penguins marches on, parties interested in the redevelopment of the former Civic Arena site are looking for more assurances of the buyer’s commitments to the Hill District.
A nine-member Executive Management Committee [EMC], charged with monitoring the flow of the benefits from the site to the rest of the neighborhood, held its first public meeting on Dec. 10, just a day after the sale received two key approvals.
On Dec. 9, the Sports and Exhibition Authority [SEA] board and the National Hockey League Board of Governors both approved the sale of a majority interest in the Penguins to Fenway Sports Group [FSG], based in Boston.
The sale has raised questions in the Hill because of the complex arrangements that govern the development effort.
The Penguins have created Pittsburgh Arena Real Estate Redevelopment LLC. PAR is a party to the Community Collaboration and Implementation Plan [CCIP], also signed by government and neighborhood leaders, which sets goals for sharing the development’s benefits throughout the neighborhood. PAR has partnered with Delaware-based Buccini/Pollin Group [BPG] to redevelop the site.
The seven-year-old EMC includes representatives of the Penguins, the public sector and the neighborhood, and is not legally required to hold open meetings. PublicSource has been asking since Aug. 10 for access to one of its meetings. The panel, which meets every two weeks, now plans to hold one public proceeding each calendar quarter.
Pittsburgh City Councilman Daniel Lavelle, a co-chair of the EMC, said he had “a very brief conversation with one of the partners at the Fenway group who has articulated that they do intend to stand by all of the commitments and all of the agreements that are in place.”
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