Center of Life’s Tim Smith on creating a ‘building that is worthy of the people’ at Hazelwood Green

PITTSBURGH — When it comes to the accelerating development progress at Hazelwood Green, Tim Smith is working to bring something the master plan so far lacks — an institution with deep roots and connections with the community. That’s something that can be offered by Smith and his Center of Life, a neighborhood nonprofit operating out of a Hazelwood church his father once led that offers a broad mix of out-of-school educational programs and community resources, including an acclaimed jazz education program. Smith is working to keep building on the Center of Life’s “Everything is about People” approach as the organization pursues a new 67,000-square-foot community center at Hazelwood Green, a scaled down version of the original 127,000-square-foot COL Hub project that was first announced last November.

How did you first become aware that a new facility was a major need?

We started Center of Life in 2001. And, we were, prior to that, running programs at Gladstone (a former school building across the street). There were so many programs running. It wasn’t just Center of Life. … There was YMCA in there. We probably had 400-some people in that building from Tuesday to Friday every week. So we saw the great need. That building was such an asset to the community. … When they shut it down, a lot of those services just left the community.

So you started Center of Life with a void that needed to be filled?

There was a huge void. I was burying kids, probably every four to five weeks. I was doing a funeral right here in this church. It was boys between the ages of 14 and 26. That part I remember. I thought, I’m burying kids that are younger than me. It was really such a need to create something that Center of Life was born. We began to serve.

Click here to read more from our partners at the Pittsburgh Business Times.

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW

©2025 Cox Media Group