Reinvestment: $25M in Contracts to MBEs; $5M to WBEs

So far, the new development of the former Civic Arena site and the early work on the new 26-story FNB Financial Center has translated into $25 million in contracts to minority-owned businesses and $5 million to woman-owned businesses.

That's according to Bomani Howze, a vice president of development for the Buccini/Pollin Group, during a panel discussion update on the major Lower Hill redevelopment at a monthly breakfast event by NAIOP Pittsburgh.

"We dig deep," he said before the local real estate organization's breakfast audience at the River's Club downtown. "We don't just put numbers in the air."

The development of the new FNB Financial Center is expected to cost in the range of $240 million to build.

While the city requires 12% MBE and 7% WBE contract values, Howse and Pittsburgh Penguins Deputy General Counsel and Director of Human Resources Tracey McCants Lewis, a fellow panelist, said the standards for the Lower Hill redevelopment are for 30% and 15%.

They're standards aimed and achieving broader goals of overcoming the systematic disinvestment, redlining and discrimination with past development on the site and the rest of the Hill District and building wealth in Pittsburgh's minority- and woman-owned business community.

It was a panel discussion in which Diamonte Walker, the deputy executive director of the URA, joined as a third panelist on a major public-private redevelopment strategy in which her agency has played a key role.

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By Tim Schooley  –  Reporter, Pittsburgh Business Times
Mar 17, 2022 Updated Mar 18, 2022, 9:29am EDT