Volunteers help to pack boxes and load trucks outside the Penn Plaza apartment complex, in East Liberty, on February 19, 2017. Tenants there received eviction notices in 2015, but were later given more time to move in a settlement between the owner and the city. (Photo by Maranie Rae Staab/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
Rooted in gentrification, a developer’s push to clear some 200 lower-income households from East Liberty drew opposition and awakened a city to a new driver of displacement.
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by Eric Jankiewicz and Rich Lord, Pittsburgh’s Public Source
July 28, 2025
Penn Plaza crystalized the affordable housing crisis in Pittsburgh like nothing before or since.
Displacement wasn’t new to the region. The entire Lower Hill was upended in the 1950s, East Liberty’s urban fabric was shredded in the 1960s, and large public housing communities were eliminated throughout the 1990s.
The July 2015 news that 200-plus residents of East Liberty’s two-building Penn Plaza Apartments had 90 days to leave, though, heralded something different from “urban renewal” or Hope VI-funded public housing revamps.
It was driven largely by a private developer, LG Realty Advisors, rather than a public entity.
It exemplified gentrification, which had not previously been a major point of public discussion in Pittsburgh, after decades of widespread population loss.
Residents were more vocal in opposition compared with some prior displacement events.
This evening at 6 p.m. at Enright Park in East Liberty, a coalition of neighborhood and community advocacy organizations will mark the 10th anniversary of that process, and “call for affordable housing for all Pittsburghers,” per the announcement of the rally.
Here are key milestones in the Penn Plaza evictions and aftermath.
2015
Following nearly five hours of presentations and speakers at a May 15, 2018, meeting, the City Planning Commission voted to approve the Pennley Park South Redevelopment Plan proposed by LG Realty, for the site of the Penn Plaza apartments. LG Realty developers, architects, attorneys and supporters here are pictured leaving the meeting. (Photo by Maranie Rae Staab/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
LG Realty Advisors, owner of the 312-unit residential housing complex, notifies tenants that their leases will expire in 90 days.
City officials, housing justice advocates and LG Realty reach an agreement to delay evictions, help relocate residents and commit to supporting construction of affordable housing across East End neighborhoods. Then-Mayor Bill Peduto says the agreement commits to “all residents of East Liberty that they will be able to remain in the neighborhood and share in its growth.”
2016
The Penn Plaza apartment complex in East Liberty before it was demolished in 2017. (Photo by Maranie Rae Staab/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
Pittsburgh officials meet with LG Realty in an attempt to determine where remaining tenants of one of the two buildings can go before an end-of-month eviction deadline.
Peduto cites Penn Plaza and the city’s response as examples of offsetting gentrification by “getting involved in private housing” for the first time, in part by using federal Housing Choice Voucher funds to help low-income families toward homeownership.
The deadline arrives with just two residents still in one of the buildings — both receiving relocation assistance — with more remaining in the other building.
2017
“I’m just tired,” said Geary Rivers when asked about having to move from his home at Penn Plaza Apartments. Residents of the apartment complex were forced to relocate to make way for development, then expected to include a 50,000-square-foot Whole Foods, 200 apartments, 12,000 square feet of offices and 582 parking spaces. (Photo by Maranie Rae Staab/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
The City Planning Commission unanimously rejects the developer’s plan to replace Penn Plaza with market-rate housing and stores including a Whole Foods grocery. LG Realty’s affiliate sues a week later in an effort to overturn the rejection.
Around 80 people assemble at the City-County Building to protest the developer’s lawsuit, with some complaining of no heat, revolting smells and noise through the evenings as construction continues.
10 activist groups from the Hill District Consensus Group to Pittsburghers for Public Transit are represented at an event outside the City-County Building to protest plans for Penn Plaza, February 21, 2017. (Photo by Stephen Caruso/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
The city sues LG Realty, claiming the company subjected residents to squalor and disruptive construction activity during their final weeks in the condemned Penn Plaza.
A judge grants an order to halt demolition of the plaza after the city sought an injunction against the owners. The city also claimed that demolition work was underway, possibly exposing residents remaining in the still-occupied building to hazards including asbestos.
It’s the final moving day for 29 families still living in the apartment complex. Some ended up more than 10 miles from the plaza.
The city settles its lawsuit with LG Realty over the demolition of the complex. The settlement has LG Realty divert funding from a tax abatement to finance affordable housing, infrastructure and landscape improvements around the development.
2018
Public Source profiles one of the final four residents to leave the now-demolished Penn Plaza apartments.
Vivian Campbell works to pack up the last remaining items in her apartment in Penn Plaza complex on March 30, 2017; she would move to her “new” apartment at the Mellon’s Orchard complex later that day. (Photo by Maranie Rae Staab/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
The names of nearly 1,300 people who wrote letters opposing a development plan for Penn Plaza are read aloud during a Planning Commission meeting. With LG Realty threatening to go back to court if its plan is rejected, the commission approves plans for the $150 million development, nearly three years after the evictions were filed.
An opponent of the redevelopment of the former Penn Plaza site reacts upon the City Planning Commission’s approval of the Pennley Park South redevelopment plan at a May 15, 2018, meeting. (Photo by Maranie Rae Staab/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)
In the aftermath of Penn Plaza’s demolition, a new city ordinance creating Registered Community Organizations formalizes community input and development interests. Some criticize it for not going far enough to empower communities.
2025
The Pittsburgh Housing Justice Table and allied groups rally housing advocates at Enright Parklet to honor displaced residents and “to push back against displacement and keep Pittsburgh home for all.”
Eric Jankiewicz is economic development reporter at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.
Rich Lord is managing editor at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org or 412-812-2529.
