Pittsburgh councilwoman raises red flag on winner of $1.8M bid to design public safety facility

A Pittsburgh councilwoman is raising concerns about paying an engineering firm $1.8 million to plan a public safety facility because of a report the company has placed opponents of its projects under surveillance.

City Council this week delayed a vote on the measure after Councilwoman Deb Gross said she did not believe the city should contract with Henningson Durham & Richardson, or HDR, which won the bid to plan the project.

“I don’t think we should do business with that kind of company,” the Highland Park Democrat said.

Gross on Wednesday raised alarms about a division at HDR she claimed was dedicated to “counterintelligence and surveilling citizens.” She pointed to a 2021 article on Vice.com called “A Company That Designs Jails is Spying on Activists Who Oppose Them.”

A spokesperson for HDR referred questions to the city.

HDR has an extensive portfolio, having worked on projects to build prisons, bridges, educational facilities and airport terminals around the globe.

The Omaha, Neb.-based company — which also has an office in Pittsburgh — helped build the new Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park after the span collapsed in January 2022. The company also is involved in Pittsburgh International Airport’s new terminal project.

In a letter to Mayor Ed Gainey, Gross linked to the Vice article.

“The City of Pittsburgh should not be doing business with companies that surveille (sic) citizens and who work to neutralize their voices,” Gross wrote, requesting a new bid for the contract.

Long delays

Council is currently considering a measure to pay HDR $1.8 million for a master plan for a public safety training facility. The facility would be located on a 168-acre site that formerly housed the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Health Care System in the Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood.

When the city acquired the land from the federal government in 2020 for $1, the deal included a stipulation that a site study would be undertaken by next June. Without the plan, the government could take the land back.

The agreement also limited the city to using the land for public safety purposes.

The training facility has been long delayed. In recent years, officials redistributed money initially earmarked for the project to other purposes, like road paving — though the capital budget again allocates cash for the project in the coming years.

Now, concerns about HDR and public outcry over other facets of the proposed facility will pause the project for at least a little while longer. Some residents have pushed back on the proposal, equating the training facility to a “cop city.”

A 2021 lawsuit accused HDR of “wiretapping the electronic communications” of people in private Facebook groups.

Carol Davis sued HDR in a federal court in Arizona, alleging HDR secretly monitored Facebook posts about a highway project she and others made to private groups “through the use of monitoring tools, automated software, and dedicated employees with backgrounds in signal intelligence and communications intelligence.”

The lawsuit claimed HDR used the information it gathered to inform its marketing strategies.

According to the lawsuit, HDR at one point advertised on its website that its “social listening” service, dubbed STRATA, “practices data-driven engagement beyond standard demographics, and tailors public involvement and decision-making approaches specifically for every project.”

The lawsuit also quotes HDR as saying, “Controversy is costly, both in reputation and in dollars. Social and political risk deserves attention at the planning stage of a project or program, where it can be carefully assessed and when there is time to develop strategies to mitigate or diminish risk.”

A judge dismissed the case, agreeing with HDR that posts to private groups were “‘readily accessible’ to the general public” because the person creating the post has no authority over who can join the group and gain access to their content.

Online court records show the plaintiff appealed, but that appeal was voluntarily dismissed.

Olga George, a spokesperson for Gainey, in a statement said the administration was grateful Gross had expressed her concerns.

“We were not aware of that service offering, did not request that type of service in our RFQ (request for qualifications), and did not receive a proposal from HDR for that type of work in response to our RFQ,” George wrote. “In light of her identifying this issue, we are reevaluating the other proposals we received.”

Gross said her office was further probing concerns about HDR, but requested City Council hold off on any further action for now.

Council members agreed to hold the measure for seven weeks.

Resident concerns

Concerns with the public training center go beyond HDR’s potential involvement.

Some residents during recent council meetings have voiced opposition, likening the proposed training area to the “cop city” that sparked protests in Atlanta, Georgia. The $115 million police training facility in Atlanta sparked outrage and protests from residents.

Phoebe Cook, of Regent Square, urged council members during a public meeting Wednesday to put “limitations on what the site can and cannot be used for.” She said she didn’t want to see it become a “walled-off, military-style compound.”

Officials said plans for the property have been scaled back from initial designs pitched by Gainey’s predecessor, Bill Peduto. Plans to move police headquarters and the Zone 5 police station in Highland Park to the site have been scrapped.

The property would house training facilities for police, fire and EMS. That would include a burn tower for firefighters, an emergency vehicle training course, a K-9 training site and multipurpose training and wellness spaces. An indoor firing range at the site would replace the outdoor one that has long aggravated Highland Park residents who don’t like having the police bureau’s existing outdoor range in a residential neighborhood.

Officials have said the Lincoln-Lemington property may also house an evidence warehouse and additional salt and winter weather equipment for the Department of Public Works.

Some officials have said the new site is necessary to replace existing training facilities. Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, described the current EMS training site within EMS headquarters as so cramped people were sitting on the floor.

The city rents space from the Community College of Allegheny County for police training classrooms, and firefighters have to drive to North Park for some of their training.

Too costly?

Pittsburgh’s five-year capital budget allocates about $86 million for the project. Jake Pawlak, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said officials will have a better cost estimate after the master plan is finished.

Alexandra Weiner, of Polish Hill, argued that money “can change a lot of Pittsburghers’ lives” and could be better spent on “literally anything else.”

Gross on Wednesday said if the project moves ahead, it should have public access and include space for de-escalation training and social workers.

Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, said she didn’t want to spend so much money on a large public safety training facility.

“I just think overall this is not a good way for us to be spending our money,” she said. “We have pools that need to be fixed. We have rec centers that need to be fixed.”