Greensburg scales back downtown master plan to focus on former Advance Furniture lot

Greensburg community leaders have scaled back the scope of a proposed master plan for revitalizing the city’s downtown business district.

Instead, a project steering committee has decided to focus on a specific site plan for developing the vacant lot at 225 S. Main St., where the former Advance Furniture building was demolished this year.

“The idea is this is a prime location on Main Street,” Councilman Gregory Mertz said. “If we’re able to attract a developer, it could be a catalyst to other properties.”

He said a request for proposals (RFP), seeking a consultant to formulate the site plan, will be issued soon.

The lot is owned by the Westmoreland County Land Bank, which worked with the Westmoreland County Redevelopment Authority and the county commissioners to raze the dilapidated six-story Advance Furniture building as part of a $10.4 million blight remediation program targeting 500 properties in seven communities.

“It looks nice now with the grass, and it’s nice and level,” Jeff Raykes, city planning director, said of the Greensburg lot. “But over time, it’s certainly not the best face to put forward in our downtown, right on Main Street. The idea is: What can we do in the interim and what can we do in the long term?”

“We’re excited about moving the plan forward,” said Alec Italiano, executive director for the nonprofit Greensburg Community Development Corp. (GCDC), a lead agency in the project.

In addition to the GCDC, the steering committee also includes representatives from other stakeholder organizations, the Greensburg business community and the county, Italiano said.

“Nothing is set in stone at this point,” Italiano said. “The steering committee’s job is to make sure that the scope of work for the eventual RFP that goes out is in line with priorities.”

He suggested the plan might look at parking and other amenities to support potential residential development of the lot.

A team from the The Counselors of Real Estate Consulting Corps visited downtown Greensburg in July and offered ideas for redeveloping several key properties, including development of a park as an interim option for the former Advance Furniture site.

It also considered construction of a three-story building there with a mix of first-floor retail space and six upper-floor apartments. But that wasn’t deemed feasible, with the projected development cost of $2 million exceeding the resulting economic value of $1.3 million.

Italiano has applied for a $25,000 state Keystone Communities grant to help fund the site plan and expects to learn the success of that application in a few months.

City council approved a one-time donation of $5,000 to GCDC to help provide a required local match for the grant.

Other portions of the match include $5,000 from the land bank and $7,500 each from GCDC and the Realtors Association of Westmoreland, Indiana and Mon Valley.

The Realtors Association of Westmoreland, Indiana and Mon Valley helped to obtain funding to support the work of The Counselors of Real Estate Consulting Corps in Greensburg.