Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has been named Outstanding Philanthropic Organization in Western Pennsylvania for spearheading neighborhood redevelopment and job creation with private investment.
The award — by the Association of Fundraising Professionals — was presented Friday in the Sheraton Hotel at Station Square.
Station Square would not exist if History & Landmarks had not turned a 52-acre, vacant industrial site into a development offering retail shops, restaurants, parking and offices.
"It generates $4 million a year in tax revenues and employs 3,000 people," said Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks.
In 1976, Ziegler and his fledgling group were looking to test their idea — that idled, industrial properties along Pittsburgh's rivers could be developed for other uses. They selected as their first test the Pennsylvania & Lake Erie Railroad yard, which included buildings erected in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
"We believed there was a market in Pittsburgh for that type of development," Ziegler said. "But people didn't. ... It was considered a blue-collar town."
History & Landmarks sold the flourishing property in 1994 to Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises. Station Square draws an estimated 2.5 million customers per year, according to Station Square's Web site — which describes the former rail yard as one of the city's top tourist destinations.
The foundation also was cited recently as the most innovative nonprofit in Pittsburgh by the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs, Ziegler said.
The program — in Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco — trains people for leadership in public affairs.
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