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When Bob Pessolano went looking for a place to open a business on Pittsburgh's South Side in 1982, there was no such thing as a business district.

"Back then, there were a few establishments," said Pessolano, who has operated Mario's Club on East Carson Street for 21 years. "They were strictly shot-and-a-beer places, that served workers at the steel mill."

Now, Pessolano is in the middle of the hottest area in the city, with developments stretching from the new Holiday Inn Express on 10th Street to the massive development of the LTV South Side Works on the site of the old LTV works through 28th Street.

"I'd like to say I had a sense or insight that all this would happen," he said, noting that he originally wanted to buy a property in the Strip District for his club. He said he happened upon the vacant Woshner's haberdashery as he drove through the then-dilapidated East Carson corridor.

Today, there's not many vacancies on the South Side.

"On almost every other block, there is some new construction," said Carey Harris, executive director of the South Side Local Development Company, which is celebrating its 21st anniversary as the driving force behind the redevelopment of the area.

The organization is using the 21st birthday celebration to tout the redevelopment of the former Rite Aid/Lorch's Department Store building, a landmark four-story structure that is undergoing a major renovation at the corner of 17th and East Carson.

"It certainly is not the same place it was 20 years ago," she said. "It is not even the same place it was 10 years ago."

Harris said the district typically starts on 10th Street, but has been stretched to include some of the businesses on 9th Street, and extends up to 25th Street. "But once South Side Works opens, we'll go all the way up to 28th," she said.

More than 160 storefronts have been renovated in the business district, many under the city's "Streetface" program, which provided grants from $777 to $62,500 for facade renovations. Those improvements, and the blossoming business environment, helped land Carson Street recognition as the first urban Great American Main Street by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Harris said that over the years, more than $80 million in private investment has gone into the reclamation of the South Side, with another $800 million in the LTV site alone.

The organization boasts that more than 100 new homes have been built in the area, including the development known as South Shore. More than 150 new businesses have set up there, with some coming and going over the years. While the business district had a 60 percent vacancy rate in 1982, now, 93 percent of the storefronts are occupied.

Rebecca Flora, a former executive director of the organization, said the vacancy rate has been even lower during her tenure. "It was closer to four or five percent," she said.

The local development company also sponsors the annual South Side Street Spectacular, which is the third-largest festival in the city, behind the Pittsburgh Regatta and the Three Rivers Arts Festival.

Harris said the South Side organization cannot afford to rest on its laurels, but now finds itself in the position of trying to manage the growth of the district.

"We believe we still have our work cut out for us," she said. "We think we're still underutilized, and there are still some empty storefronts."

Harris is especially pleased that the area has become a destination for other businesses, and a destination for people who have rediscovered city living.

"We have become a great place to locate office space," she said, noting that is one of the uses planned for the Rite Aid/Lorch's property. "We even have some information technology companies that are relocating here," including TissueInformatics, and pair Networks in River Park Commons.

"People are really gravitating to the area, realizing that it is a great place to live," Harris continued. "New people are moving into this area every day. It is a place where new people want to be."

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