Pittsburgh's East Ohio Street has bright future, businesses and officials say

A four-block business district along Pittsburgh’s East Ohio Street is slowly inching away from its reputation as a habitat for panhandlers, drug abusers and prostitutes. Cory Hughes sees opportunity everywhere he looks.

Hughes and partner Alex Feltovich are in the process of opening a wood-fired grill and restaurant. They expect to open their doors later this year.

The Fig and Ash Wood Fire Kitchen will join several other restaurants and business, including a 96-room hotel, that have recently opened or plan to open in the near future, and community leaders are working to attract more in coming months.

Hughes, a chef who has prepared food at Steelers training camp and most recently cooked for Google at Bakery Square in East Liberty, said he was approached several years ago about opening a restaurant on East Ohio, one of the oldest commercial corridors in Pittsburgh.

“I drove down here and parked my car for like an hour and I just watched,” he said. “I absolutely fell in love with the street. I think this is going to be such a cool place to be, and I just wanted to be part of it.”

North Side-based October Development is finishing a $18 million, 96-room Comfort Inn on East Ohio near East Street and Interstate 279 with an opening scheduled for January. Once that’s finished, the company will start work on transforming a vacant former bank building next door into a restaurant and bar with space for large events such as weddings, according to Al DePasquale, a partner in October Development.

The Priory Hospitality Group, owner of the nearby Priory Hotel and a bakery on East Ohio, will manage the hotel and former bank building. John Graf, president and CEO of Priory Hospitality, said the street is changing for the better.

“I’m more optimistic now than I ever have been,” he said. “We’ve got some really neat places that have opened up just recently or are slated to open up. I’m seeing some upswing there.”

New businesses opening in recent years include Arnold’s Tea, Siempre Algo restaurant and bar, and the Government Center, a vinyl record store.

Graf said Priory Hospitality also is renovating a building at East Ohio and Cedar Avenue that previously housed a Rita’s Italian Ice franchise for a chicken and waffle restaurant.

The Northside Leadership Conference in 2017 purchased eight buildings in the 400 block of East Ohio and is leasing them to four developers, including October Development, who banded together and formed East Ohio Capital, according to Mark Fatla, the conference’s executive director.

One of the buildings houses a Subway sandwich shop and Boostmobile with Subba’s Asian Restaurant on the second floor. Those businesses will remain, Fatla said.

DePasquale said the group plans to renovate the buildings, but the plans are tied up in a court appeal filed by several residents over a Pittsburgh Zoning Board of Adjustment ruling that permitted first-floor retail and second-floor apartments.

Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court is hearing the case and Fatla said he expects a decision sometime next year. Fatla and DePasquale said they were confident they’ll win the court fight.

“Right now the 400 block is stalled,” Fatla said. “We cannot close on financing because there’s a pending appeal on all of the zoning and planning approvals we had.”