Home to a diverse mix of restaurants and eateries, 6th Street is one of Downtown’s most lively dining and cultural destinations for residents, workers, and visitors. To help struggling restaurants early in the pandemic, the PDP, along with the City of Pittsburgh, implemented a series of pilot projects along 6th Street, reconfiguring the previous curb parking and vehicular travel lanes to allow for outdoor dining spaces. These upgrades have not only allowed 6th Street to better serve the restaurants and their patrons; they’ve helped to solidify this area as a premiere dining destination, transforming it into a more vibrant pedestrian and urban avenue.
To capitalize on the momentum and success along this Downtown corridor, the 6th Street Gateway Portal project is supporting the next iteration of this work. The project strives to create a sense of place, character, and arrival that will convert this two-block stretch into a distinct district within Downtown Pittsburgh. By collaborating with businesses and property owners, the PDP is focusing on pedestrian placemaking and activation through site-specific infrastructure at strategic arrival points along 6th Street. These “moments” highlight historic structures, cultural institutions, and dining destinations.
This project not only helps this vital corridor recover from the pandemic, but also reimagines how a resilient, diverse, and thriving streetscape can reshape how visitors experience a truly urban Downtown Pittsburgh.
Jeremy Waldrup