The New Pittsburgh Courier has learned that the Hill House Association hasn’t sold any of its buildings…yet.
In fact, it’s highly unlikely that no “T’s” will be crossed nor “I’s” dotted before the summer.
City Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle, with state Rep. Jake Wheatley by his side, announced at a community gathering at the Grayson Center, Jan. 10, that an agreement had been reached with the Hill House Association Board of Directors and the Hill District Growth Fund, in which the Growth Fund will loan the Hill House $500,000 to pay its bills and continue its social service programs for the next four months.
Concurrently, a RFP (Request For Proposal) for several of the Hill House’s properties has been drafted by the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, which will be available for anyone to view or make a bid.
After a month of bids being accepted, the Growth Fund, Hill House Association and the URA will conduct an initial review of the proposals and the proposals will be vetted for technical accuracy, making sure the people who submitted bids are actually in a financially feasible position to follow through.
The proposals that pass the vetting process will then be referred to the Hill District Development Review Panel, which will make sure that each developer’s proposal aligns with the master plan of the Hill District, the Centre Avenue plan, and its overall plans to positively contribute to the Hill District community and its majority-African American residents.
The Development Review Panel will then present the developer (or developers) to the community at a meeting, to let residents hear firsthand their plans for the Hill House properties.
The ultimate hope, Councilman Lavelle said to a group of 150 attentive residents at the Jan. 10 meeting at the Grayson Center, is to have a bidder (or bidders) that has the community’s approval, which, in turn, will be accepted and approved by the Hill House Board. That bidder (or bidders) then would hopefully, in Councilman Lavelle’s eyes, be approved for the sale by a judge, who will make the final decision on the sale of the properties.
“This evening, I’m here to say thank you, one to the community for voicing your concerns, and to the Hill District Growth Fund for being willing to put its own money forward to help this organization (Hill House Association), to invest in this organization, to help ensure community process as we move forward,” Councilman Lavelle said.
He also showered thanks to Emma Lucas-Darby, president of the Hill House Board of Directors. “Dr. Darby is a resident of this community…she does worship in the same church that many of us worship in, and is a part of this,” he said. “She has done what she believed was most responsible for the community and the organization she represented, and ultimately in attempting to do what is right, we were able to come to an agreement moving forward from this day.”
Acknowledging that they were running out of money, the Hill House Board previously had an agreement in August 2018 to sell four of its seven buildings—including the Hill House Main building on Centre Avenue—to Omicelo, LLC, led by an African American, Joshua Pollard. But the announcement was met with harsh criticism and a public outcry from many Hill District (and neighboring) residents, angry that the community as a whole was never included in the conversation of the future of the Hill House properties.
Councilman Lavelle and Rep. Wheatley went to work, trying to find government funds, foundation funds, any funds to stave off the sale, or at least delay the sale so that the community could have more input.
The two politicians, along with Allegheny County Councilman DeWitt Walton, eventually filed a petition with the County Court of Common Pleas seeking a stop to the sale to Omicelo until the state Attorney General’s office reviewed it.
“Long story short, in that legal court process the judge said, ‘You all really need to get back in the room and figure this out,’” Councilman Lavelle said. From around Christmas until Jan. 10, “We got in a room, and I’m pleased to stand here today…finalizing a memorandum of understanding.”
When Lucas-Darby took the microphone during the Jan. 10 public meeting, she acknowledged that the “negotiating room” was not without plenty of disagreements between she and the elected officials. But, “When you care about your community and when you care about the services that are offered, you will do what is right, and everybody that was invested in this negotiation did what was right,” Lucas-Darby said.
The infusion of funds that the Growth Fund is providing to the Hill House Association will assure that the Hill House’s social services will continue for at least the next four months. The Hill House provides meal delivery services to seniors, arts and culture programs at the Kaufmann Center, and through its roughly 20 partner agencies, offers child care, educational programs, job assistance, health and wellness clinics, and other support programs for seniors.
“And I am convinced this community will move forward, we will work together, and we will continue to provide the social services to this community,” Lucas-Darby told the audience.
Omicelo’s current proposal is to purchase three buildings—the Family Dollar building, One Hope Square, and the Blakey Center—for $3.6 million. The Hill House Main building is not included in the current Omicelo proposal.
The Kaufmann Center, a senior center on Bedford Avenue, and the Centre-Heldman plaza, which houses Shop ‘n Save and other outlets, are not for sale.
Representative Wheatley is encouraging anyone with the financial means to review the RFP that the URA has made public and submit an offer for one or all of the buildings up for sale. But he stressed that the reason for the delaying of the original sale to Omicelo was to make sure the community could do their own vetting of possible developers—which means that those developers submitting bids over the next month should be prepared to have a plan that pleases the Hill District Development Review Panel.
A score of “80 percent or above” is good, according to Marimba Milliones, president and CEO of the Hill District Community Development Corporation. After reviewing the proposals, that high of a score “means that they align with the master plan,” she said at the meeting. “Then they come to the community, and you (the residents) get a scorecard that says, ‘1-Highly Unfavorable’ to ‘5-Highly Favorable.’ It’s a very open process. It’s clearly aligned with our master plan.”
All of the new bids on the Hill House properties, including the vetting process, the Development Review Panel’s recommendations, the community’s affirmations or disapprovals, etc., must be completed by May 31, Councilman Lavelle said. It’s conceivable that when the $500,000 loaned to the Hill House Association by the Growth Fund runs out by the end of May, something needs to shake—either the Hill House Association approves the proposal(s) by whom the community also approves, or the Hill House Board could choose to go with their original plan—move forward with selling the buildings to Omicelo.
“That means there’s a lot to do in a little bit of time,” Councilman Lavelle said to the audience. “This is what we asked for, this process, but this process costs, and we brought forward enough money to get us through the next four to five months.”
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Hill House Growth Fund loans $500,000 to Hill House Association—social services to continue for next four months, sale is delayed
