For those who couldn’t make it to the Broad Street Plaza meeting last week, read a recap of the evening’s events below.

Hearing from the community
Community members and stakeholders gathered together shortly after 6 pm on Thursday, September 13th to participate in a design workshop for the redesign of the plaza abutting North Highland Avenue, Broad Street, and North Whitfield Street. Klavon Design Associates, Inc. was selected as the designer for the project through the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh’s (URA) public bidding process. The URA hosted the design workshop and it was facilitated by both the Klavon team and the URA.
The purpose of the design workshop was to gather information from the community as to how they envisioned the design of the plaza. The workshop was structured as an informal walk-through of nine stations, containing boards with key topics and inspirational images such as public plaza, connectivity, sustainability, art, site materials/furnishings, and programming/partnerships. The participants were greeted and briefed on how to use the stations and asked to share their top priorities on the images or topics that inspired them. They were also given an opportunity to provide additional comments, ideas, and concerns. The workshop concluded with a tally of the participant’s top priorities to be considered for the redesign of the plaza.
Visitors were asked to vote on their top priorities for the Broad Street Plaza space.
Overall feedback
Participants were enthusiastic about creating a very walkable plaza that is programmable to local events. Most participants were interested in using bollards and varying paving materials to separate Broad Street instead of a typical curb. There was also an interest in the local history which could be included in an informational sign or plaque to explain the site’s history. Further, there was an interest in trees with a thick canopy for shade and texture as well as interest in a public fountain or art piece of similar scale.
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