Beltzhoover residents laud URA's investment in former elementary school

Margie Thompson attended elementary school at Beltzhoover Elementary School 75 years ago.

It was a “nice community school,” said Thompson, who is 86.

On Wednesday, she was among the people who filled the area on Cedarhurst Street in front of the school to celebrate a $72,000 investment by the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh. The money will help pay for a new roof on the school, which closed in 2005. The building is being redeveloped by a group led by the Beltzhoover Consensus Group in partnership with the city, URA and several foundations.

The plan is to transform the school into a community center that includes affordable housing and places for the public to gather.

“This is a first meaningful step,” toward that, URA Deputy Executive Director Diamonte Walker said.

It represents a new strategy by the URA to involve community groups in development projects.

“The URA can’t do it alone,” Walker said.

The money one of 12 grants totaling $568,000 the URA awarded to projects this year from its Neighborhood Initiatives Fund, she said.

The project was lauded by Councilman Bruce Kraus, who represents the neighborhood, and Jennifer Cash Wade of the Beltzhoover Consensus Group, who worked together to get project to this point.

“I’m beyond excited,” Kraus said Wednesday, as a recounted the three-year journey for the city to buy the school and come up with a plan to use it.

“It’s not like you get up one day and do your to-do list and go groceries, put gas in the car, drop off dry cleaning, buy the Beltzhoover school,” Kraus said. “It was a massive undertaking.”

It’s a day to rejoice as the school is restored and will be used to benefit the entire community, Cash Wade said.

During the process of working to redevelop the school, Walker said people told her how the school was an anchor for the neighborhood.

“This is our emblem of hope,” Walker said they told her.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said the way the Beltzhoover Consensus Group spoke with a unified voice for the community helped move the project forward.

Replacing the roof is the first step toward restoring an anchor to the community.

“An anchor is what you build around because of its strength an anchor is what a community is based upon,” Peduto.

For Thompson and other Beltzhoover residents who came out, that’s what they hope the school will become again.

“You have to build your community from the ground up,” she said. “This is a start.”