Before the tech headlines and investor interest, ELDI was laying the foundation for transformation. Explore the community-driven model that made today’s growth possible.
First there was steel, then there were eds and meds, and now Pittsburgh has set its sights on becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub—and East Liberty is at the epicenter. In May 2024, developer Walnut Capital announced its plans to create an “AI Avenue,” a one-mile corridor from Bakery Square’s Penn and Fifth Avenue intersection extending across Penn Avenue to the Duolingo office in East Liberty.
It’s a marketing and planning concept that aims to cluster AI and tech firms in close proximity to stimulate job growth and investment while also creating a visible identity for Pittsburgh’s budding AI ecosystem. Well-known companies anchoring the avenue include Google, Duolingo, and the CMU Cloud Lab, but the Bakery Square website notes that there are over 20 emerging AI companies bringing more jobs and development to Pittsburgh’s East End neighborhoods.
The vision for AI Avenue is being amplified by efforts like the AI Strike Team—a coalition of key industry players, academia, and government to mobilize AI infrastructure, investment, and innovation around Pittsburgh—and the AI Horizons Summit, held this past September at Bakery Square. The event showcased how emerging systems of robotics, autonomy, and embedded AI are already being deployed, underscoring how AI Avenue is becoming more than just a concept.
It’s the kind of development that we could have only dreamed of when ELDI was founded more than 40 years ago. At that time, East Liberty was a vastly different place than it is now. Following years of disinvestment and misguided urban renewal era changes, the neighborhood was plagued by crime, vacancy, and an overall lack of opportunity.
So how did we go from that to the kind of vibrant neighborhood now fostering this AI transformation?
Let’s break it down.
The foundation: A plan for East Liberty
In 1996, ELDI’s Executive Director, Maelene Myers, began her tenure with a simple yet radical task—to listen. Hundreds of community meetings later, that process culminated in the 1999 East Liberty community plan, A Vision for East Liberty. The plan outlined a bold vision, defined by East Liberty’s legacy residents, to restore the community as a “town in a city”—a vibrant, full-service neighborhood offering commerce, employment, recreation, and housing for all.
That plan became the neighborhood’s roadmap and our north star at ELDI.
As Maelene recalls:
“My first task was gathering the community to listen, learn, and develop a vision for their dreams and desires for this struggling neighborhood.”
From those conversations, the community’s priorities became clear: rebuild from the edges in, reconnect the streets, attract jobs and retail, and make sure long-time residents could remain part of the change.
A decade later, the 2010 East Liberty Community Plan built on that foundation, incorporating new voices and perspectives as the neighborhood began to experience change. Together, these plans became the springboard for action—living frameworks that would shape every development, partnership, and investment that followed.
Over time, a model for successful community development emerged. We call it PAFI: Plan, Advocate, Facilitate, and Invest.
The building blocks of change
From that first community plan, momentum began to build, slowly at first and then rapidly. Over the next two decades, East Liberty’s transformation unfolded step by step, guided by the vision residents laid out for us and refined through partnership, patience, and persistence.
- 1999–2010 | The vision takes shape
Our community plans outlined a clear direction: stabilize housing, restore the commercial core, reconnect the street grid, and ensure that long-time residents shared in the benefits of new investment.
- 2000 | Perception shifts begin
The opening of Home Depot marked a turning point, showing national retailers that East Liberty was once again a viable market and paving the way for Whole Foods, Target, and others to follow.
- 2005–2009 | Replacing the high-rises
Working with partners, we demolished East Liberty’s three distressed high-rise complexes, replacing them with nearly 400 units of mixed-income rental and affordable homeownership options, allowing displaced residents to return to higher-quality, safer housing.
- 2014 | Choice Neighborhoods award
Through KEEL—a coalition of organizations made up of the Kingsley Association, East Liberty Housing Inc., ELDI, and the Larimer Consensus Group—we secured a $30 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to create 334 new homes in Larimer and East Liberty and Liberty Green Park. The way in which we integrated social services into the redevelopment process would go on to be recognized nationally as best practice.
- 2015–2021 | Transit and connectivity
Investments through the Transit Revitalization Improvement District expanded walkability, improved safety, and helped attract new employers and residents.
- 2017–2025 | Building wealth and ownership
In partnership with our spin-off organizations—Catapult Greater Pittsburgh, Rising Tide Partners, and Main + Elm Development Company—we are turning our focus to increasing affordable and attainable homeownership opportunities in East Liberty and across Pittsburgh, particularly for minority residents.
The key ingredient: Risk
Transformation on this scale doesn’t happen by playing it safe. From acquiring distressed properties when few others would, to investing in commercial developments like Eastside Bond and Whole Foods, we took risks that many community organizations simply couldn’t—or wouldn’t—take.
As our former Director of Land Recycling, Kendall Pelling, put it:
“You can’t just wish affordable housing into existence. You have to enable the nonprofit, community, and partners to actually own the property.”
Looking back, it’s clear to see that this willingness to take risk—financial, political, and reputational—was one of the defining ingredients of our success. With the support of many partners and lenders, each risk we took made space for new opportunity, and each investment helped breathe new life into a once-neglected part of the neighborhood.
Where AI Avenue stands and what comes next
Today, the AI Avenue corridor is moving quickly from concept to construction. According to recent reporting:
- Infrastructure upgrades are underway
The stretch of Penn Avenue between Duolingo and Google is seeing new investment, including The Meridian, a mixed-use development adding housing, retail, and dining, and the approved Bakery Square expansion, which will redevelop a 14-acre site that encompasses the former site of Club One Fitness and Village of Eastside shopping center (where Trader Joe’s sits). - New facilities are anchoring the corridor
Construction is planned for a Secure Innovation Center at Bakery Square to support national security–focused AI work. - Local companies are expanding
Hellbender, a Pittsburgh-born computer vision and AI systems company, is relocating its headquarters to Bakery Square, adding 40,000 square feet of new workspace. - The AI Strike Team is coordinating growth
The team is working with the city and private developers to prepare sites, infrastructure, and power capacity along AI Avenue, ensuring that the corridor grows strategically.
These developments signal progress while also echoing the lessons of the past. Growth doesn’t happen on its own. Rather, it must be cultivated and managed with care, community input, and a long-term vision for transformation.
At ELDI, we’re still carrying the community’s vision for East Liberty forward. Through our partner organizations—Catapult Greater Pittsburgh, Rising Tide Partners, and Main + Elm Development Company—we continue to take strategic risks and guide equitable development. As AI Avenue develops, we look forward to being a part of this exciting new growth and helping ensure that the benefits of new investment are shared by everyone who calls this community home.