Former Greensburg Community Development Corp. leaders reflect on 50 years supporting city

As Greensburg Community Development Corp. celebrates its 50th anniversary, former board president Scott Brown cannot help but reflect on how the nonprofit’s challenges and scope have changed.

When the development corporation formed in 1975, its purpose was to maintain the city’s business scene amid the success of Greengate and Westmoreland malls, Brown said. Half a century later, downtown businesses compete with mobile food ordering and online retail giant Amazon.

The corporation itself has transformed from a handful of volunteers into a 25-person board supporting a paid executive director.

Brown is confident that a thriving Greensburg business community is here to stay with the help of community staples — the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, the Palace Theatre and St. Clair Park’s Robertshaw Amphitheater, to name a few.

“A developer once told me that the components that often support good development are a courthouse, a hospital and a college or university,” he said, “and we have all three of those.

“Those are real solid institutions that are going to be here and keep a lot of people in town and provide the services that make people want to live here.”

Former president, directors honored at ceremony

Brown and two of the corporation’s former executive directors — Ashley Kertes and Steve Gifford — were honored during the 50th anniversary celebration Thursday.

A Greensburg native, Brown served as the city’s mayor from 1980 to 1987. He began volunteering for the development corporation a few years after it first formed and has remained involved ever since.

Kertes, who died unexpectedly in 2023, led the Greensburg corporation for four years. She also worked for Greensburg Salem School District and Westmoreland County’s fiscal department and controller’s office.

Gifford led the corporation nearly 12 years before accepting an executive director position for Butler County’s Community Development Corp.

“I am proud to be recognized alongside Scott Brown and Ashley Kertes as having an opportunity to join the list of people committed to the betterment of Greensburg,” he said via email.

GCDC over the years

The corporation’s accomplishments run the gamut, Gifford said.

The nonprofit led development of the Robertshaw Amphitheater in the ’90s, he said. Most notably, the venue is home to the SummerSounds concert series — which drew 28,500 people and more than $1 million in economic impact to the city in 2024.

The corporation brought in three real estate investors in 2009 and 2010 to build 19 new downtown apartments, housing 46 residents. The nonprofit later purchased an abandoned house along College Avenue and several nearby parcels — now home to the 27-unit College Avenue Apartment building and a Seton Hill academic building, Gifford said.

Brown and former city planning director Barbara Ciampini led the beautification of South Pennsylvania Avenue — replacing electrical poles with underground utility lines and installing decorative red brick along the sidewalks, Gifford said.

The corporation also established a tax incentive program to give commercial developers or property owners a break on increased property taxes in exchange for investing in improvements to existing buildings or dilapidated parcels. The city, school district and county voted this year to extend the program for a second 10-year term.

‘We’re in good shape’

After three years of frequent leadership turnover, the corporation is back on track under Executive Director Nancy Ligus, Brown said.

“There have been times where we didn’t have the money to keep a good executive director,” Brown said, “and so some of that change slowed us down.

“But I think right now, we’re in good shape.”

Gifford has mixed feelings about the corporation reaching its 50th anniversary.

“Part of me wishes the organization didn’t reach 50 years because the commercial corridors were free of blight, property owners were benefiting from strong real estate markets and downtown buildings were functioning at their greatest potential,” Gifford said via email. “But that’s not reality.

“Having said that, I’m glad the GCDC exists.”