Three decades on Fifth Avenue.

Artists find the east end

Before 1990, as in many underserved neighborhoods, the arts began to take hold in the rough east end of Uptown. Photographers Richard Kelly and Paul Selvaggio were already rooted in the building at 1940 Fifth Avenue, a former Elks Hall.

Downstairs, Pittsburgh theatre professional Lou Taylor built movie and TV sets, including Equal Justice and Monkey Shines, in the 3,600-square-foot ground-floor shop. He put some 60 carpenters to work while living on the second floor.

Soho comes to Fifth Avenue

After ten years in Downtown’s First Side, designer Dale McNutt moved his firm, Soho Invention, into studio offices at 1940 Fifth Avenue. It was the start of more than three decades on this block.

Gist Street comes alive

Arriving from Brazil, artist James Simon set up his live/work studio on Gist Street in 2000. Ceramicist John Fleenor came from Oregon and bought a home and studio across the street. Writers, producers, and photographers followed, among them John Kasunic of Agency 1903/Crows Run Pictures, Craig Thompson, and film-effects specialist James Pastorious of Savage VFX. James and John launched the Gist Street Arts initiative, a drive-by gallery of sculptures, murals, and mosaics that continues today.

In 2001 the Gist Street Reading Series began in Simon’s artfully textured third-floor walk-up, directed by writers Sherrie Flick and Nancy Krygowski with support from Rick Schweikert. On the first Friday of each month it sold out at 75 seats, with 30 more people often turned away. Over a ten-year run it earned a national reputation and brought hundreds of people into Uptown for the first time.

“Gist Street is the place you’ve always wanted to be… it’s the best crowds you’ll ever read to.”

Michael Byers, writer, then teaching at the University of Pittsburgh

The McNutts buy the building

Dale and Jeanne McNutt purchased the former Elks Hall, first for work and eventually for living. Jeanne worked with Soho at the Uptown site until the couple closed the firm in October 2006, ready for something new.

The first lease

Dale saw the potential to bring young entrepreneurs into the building to seed new community activity. The first lease went to Näkturnal, a women-owned company producing socially innovative events, sponsorships, and marketing for arts and entertainment organizations. They rented space on the big studio loft while coordinating Uptown’s first Sprout Fund mural.

“Nak” was four principals (Leigh Yock, Kellee Maize, Kate Gittings, and Lani Redinger) plus up to a dozen university interns each semester. At their Wednesday night meetings, 16 women, all but one under 30, gathered around a makeshift conference table in the middle of the main studio floor, often until well after midnight. “What’s not to like about this!” Dale remembers thinking. Jeanne bonded with the young women as she battled breast cancer that year, successfully.

Moving in, and the IKEA kitchen

That October the McNutts moved their home from Oakland into the building. They added color to Dale’s former business space and realized they’d be sharing a simple IKEA galley kitchen with the startups. They still do, though it has grown up, with real amenities and two big airpots of La Prima coffee that Dale brews every morning.

The same month, 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh entrepreneur Nick Pinkston answered a Craigslist ad and rented the rest of the loft to build CloudFab, an early bet on decentralized, on-demand manufacturing.

HackPGH, the region’s first makerspace

Nick co-founded HackPGH on the ground floor: a tech-based educational collaborative and makerspace. It won a Maker Faire Detroit Editor’s Choice award in 2011 and earned a national reputation, with up to 25 people gathering on a Friday night to learn and network, Thursday lectures, and projects during daily open shop hours.

Its leaders went on to big things. Nick sold CloudFab to VistaTek, founded Plethora (a $40M+ funded “factory of the future” in San Francisco), and was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2016. Co-founder Matt Stultz became MAKE magazine’s digital fabrication editor. Meta Mesh Wireless Communities, born inside HackPGH, now brings low-cost or free WiFi to thousands of Pittsburgh residents. HackPGH, 70-plus members strong, celebrated ten years in March 2019.

“Give ordinary people the right tools, and they will design and build the most extraordinary things.”

MIT Media Lab

HackPGH renovation pitch, 2018 (PDF)

The Keystone Innovation Zone

Shepherded by Duquesne University, the Pittsburgh Central Keystone Innovation Zone opened as the first KIZ grounded in an underserved neighborhood. It offered tech startups grant dollars, access to Pennsylvania tax credits, and paid internships through the zone’s four universities.

Urban Innovation21, led by William Generett Jr., went on to support 150+ startups in Pittsburgh’s underserved communities with more than $10 million in tax credits and early-stage grants, one of the first US organizations to work under an “inclusive innovation” model. Since 2009, qualifying companies at StartUptown, Avenu, and 5thAVE Studio have accrued more than $4.8 million in Pennsylvania tax benefits.

StartUptown is born

The nonprofit StartUptown, aptly named by Jeanne, was formed as a Pennsylvania nonprofit and federal 501(c)(3), with legal help from Duquesne University and encouragement from Bill Generett. It grew into Pittsburgh’s first coworking space, home to 80-plus entrepreneurs over time, and drew visits from local and national tech leaders.

“StartUptown is a cross between a traditional co-working space and something with more soul.”

Alexis Madrigal, The Atlantic

Welcome to Uptown

To herald the neighborhood’s transformation with public art, Jeanne raised $40,000 and worked with artist James Simon on his bold mosaic “Welcome to Uptown” sign at the neighborhood’s gateway by the Birmingham Bridge, with engineering and installation by John Walter. It gave Uptown a much-needed identity. The neighborhood is now home to more than 22 public artworks.

That same year, ceramicist John Fleenor married Helen Perilloux at a big studio reception at 1940 Fifth Avenue.

A neighborhood wakes up

Organized community work in public safety, greening, the arts, and technology set the stage for renewed investment. When the lights came on at the beautifully restored Fifth Avenue School Lofts in 2012, the $10 million project opened the door to three affordable housing developments by Action Housing, followed by Flats on Fifth, Union on Fifth, and a stream of development, big and small.

A visit from Steve Case

On June 25, 2014, AOL founder Steve Case brought his Rise of the Rest Road Tour, a national spotlight on high-growth startups outside Silicon Valley, to Pittsburgh. StartUptown presented nine of its resident companies. In the main studio, Steve talked with Robb Myer of NoWait while Eric Silver, founder of Webkite, stood by.

NoWait, the mobile waitlist app for casual-dining restaurants, had grown from 4 to 22 employees on the studio loft, seating millions of guests a month across the country.

StartUptown’s press kit for the tour (PDF)

The Paramount Film Exchange

StartUptown opened a second home for “Coworking-Plus” in the historic Paramount Film Exchange at 544 Miltenberger Street. Built in 1926, it’s the last remnant of Uptown’s Film Row, where studios once shipped movies to neighborhood theaters across the region. Developed with photographer Alexander Denmarsh and architects Thoughtful Balance, it added 6,400 square feet on two floors, plus Denmarsh’s own studio. Webkite moved its team of 22 upstairs, and forty museum-mounted posters celebrate entrepreneurs from Paramount’s film history.

Saved from demolition, the $1.2 million project came together with a $250,000 grant from the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County, URA and Dollar Bank financing, and private investment. A red-carpet party opened the building on October 2, 2014.

A green roof for the Paramount (PDF)

A $40 million exit, and Avenu

NoWait, which had grown to 60 people at Revv Oakland, was acquired by Yelp for $40 million in March 2017. That year StartUptown merged with Revv Oakland to form Avenu: a campus of seven entrepreneurial work sites and 48 companies employing more than 200 people from Uptown through Oakland.

Also in 2017, Catalyst Connection launched its “Making Your Future” campaign at HackPGH, and the City of Pittsburgh adopted the Uptown EcoInnovation District Plan, the first community-driven comprehensive plan it had ever officially adopted.

5thAVE Studio is born

On June 1, 2018, Dale pulled the original site at 1936 Fifth Avenue from the Avenu portfolio and formed 5thAVE Studio. It became home to HackPGH, live-work companies, a medical-device startup, and eight other startups and coworking teams.

Streetwear brand DailyBreadPA lived and worked upstairs. On the second floor, the space once used by medical-device startup Forest Devices became the hair salon Moxie Chop Studio. And Apollo Neuroscience moved onto the newly renovated third floor.

PublicSource moves in

PublicSource, Pittsburgh’s nonprofit newsroom and a partner in the Facebook Journalism Project, moved into a large, open headquarters at 5thAVE. That year it published hundreds of stories and hosted events that engaged thousands of residents. In 2020 its in-depth reporting on COVID-19 and its impact on the region became essential reading.

UPMC breaks ground

On March 14, 2019, UPMC broke ground on its Vision and Rehabilitation Tower at UPMC Mercy, one of three projects in a $2 billion investment. The 410,000-square-foot tower brings clinicians, researchers, educators, and industry partners together and anchors an innovation corridor from Downtown through Uptown to Oakland.

Apollo’s superpower

Apollo Neuroscience shipped its first wearable, a watch-like device that uses gentle vibration to help people shift between calm and energized states. Thousands of units sold out within two weeks, just as COVID-19 hit China and forced a pivot to a Pittsburgh-region contract manufacturer. Having raised $4.5 million, the team grew on our third floor into a $10M-a-year company.

“Honestly, as a CEO and an entrepreneur, the head of a startup, it is my superpower.”

Kathryn Fantauzzi, co-founder and CEO

CallerReady and the KIZ

Built on the main floor by founder Joe Charlson and a team of top developers, CallerReady’s pay-per-call platform helps businesses connect callers to the right salesperson faster. Working inside the Keystone Innovation Zone, it has collected more than $400,000 in tax credits, money that helped it take the risk of new hires.

“I’m more artist than technologist… but based on his record of hiring, the robust website, and the KIZ numbers, big things are happening.”

Dale McNutt

Award-winning neighbors

Stephen Jones steered his medical-device startup CerebroScope, a non-invasive system for detecting secondary brain injury, to a win in the LifeX Labs Accelerator’s final pitch competition. At 72, he’s proof that creativity thrives at any age. Down the hall, TurnkeyTaxes passed $10 billion in untaxed revenue discovered for local governments.

“Dale and his wife Jeanne built an environment that gives inspiration and a feel of home. 1936 itself is like a studio museum.”

Mark Schuster, founder & CEO, TurnkeyTaxes

New faces in the studio

5thAVE welcomed metalworker Sasha Skwarcha of Elite Alloy Concepts (fire pits, gates, decorative objects, and signage), Brij Dhanda’s Ezra Digital (websites and mobile apps), and UI/UX designer Solomon Ilochi of Shoko Designs. Jeff Gooch and Stephen Norcup founded Innovative Public Safety to help public safety agencies put technology and data to work.

Jeanne McNutt retires

After more than 15 years, Jeanne McNutt retired as executive director of Uptown Partners, the community organization she helped form with Duquesne University, Mercy Hospital, and her neighbors. Under her leadership, Uptown drew more than $880 million in investment, and its EcoInnovation District Plan became the first comprehensive neighborhood plan officially adopted by the City of Pittsburgh.

Jeanne never went to a meeting unprepared; her 90-plus kraft-covered notebooks, one filled every six weeks, prove it. Dale remembers finding her past 2 a.m., curled up in a huge green chair with a two-inch binder about something called Bus Rapid Transit. She was getting ready for the next day’s meeting.

“Our biggest challenge going forward… is to ensure that as our market escalates, we provide housing opportunities for ALL in our community…”

Jeanne McNutt, in her letter to the Uptown Partners board

A plan worth celebrating

The Uptown EcoInnovation District Plan won an American Planning Association award for sustainability, and the Port Authority of Allegheny County secured a $99.95 million federal grant toward Bus Rapid Transit linking Downtown and Oakland. It was the very project Jeanne had studied late into the night.

Full circle

Twelve years after Näkturnal signed the first lease, Leigh Yock, who went on to help run Spirit Hall in Lawrenceville, renovated a house on Forbes Avenue near the McNutts and joined the Uptown Partners board. Like the McNutts, she believes Uptown can be Pittsburgh’s next great neighborhood.

Filmmaker Drew Nicholas, who has kept his address at the studio since around 2015, saw his documentary Blood Memory, the untold history of America’s Indian Adoption Era, win awards across the country.

Five years of PublicSource

PublicSource celebrated five years at 5thAVE. New coworkers keep arriving, from software engineers and game designers to transportation consultants and coworkers from out of town, and they join the long line of change-makers at 1936 Fifth Avenue.