The region’s first retail hub has been in the works for three years. It’s in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood. It pushed through the pandemic, and its grand opening is in sight.
The Lawrenceville Market House will be the new home of 10 businesses. One of those businesses is Fat Cat Chocolates. Daniel Stevey quit his banking job to pursue this passion for making and selling chocolate.
“I heard about this space and was ready to take the plunge,” said Fat Cat Chocolates Owner Daniel Stevey.
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The former Mellon Bank building was originally built in 1967.
“We kept a lot of the original features like the vault,” said Lawrenceville Market House Co-Founder Brian Mendelssohn.
A wine shop is going into the space where the vault is located, and a Tim Burton themed restaurant is expected to open downstairs this summer.
“It’s very much a small and local kind of forward place,” said Stevey.
“We’re all like this is the start of our new careers, and so that’s very exciting for all of us,” said Mendelssohn.
Brian Mendelssohn is the co-founder of Market House.
“What we found during the pandemic was that people decided to quit their corporate job and start their passion,” said Mendelssohn. “And so two years later which is now, their passion is strong enough to open a retail store. And here they can do it in a high traffic area across from the cinema anchored by the donut coffee shop Oliver’s coffee and donuts.”
Oliver’s Donuts is Mendelssohn’s new passion. He says Market House is the region’s first retail hub. Over the last several years, the businesses have all been doing pop-ups, but now, they have a place to set up and stay. Mendelssohn says they were expecting to open in May 2021. Supply chain issues, escalating costs and the current worker shortage pushed the project back by eight months.
“It was terrifying to think about doing a retail-focused development when the pandemic hit,” said Mendelssohn. “Retail was already struggling before that, but we really thought that our approach to retail with this model was very new and novel especially for Pittsburgh that it will give a lot of chance for people to get their businesses off the ground and really incubate small businesses.”
The Lawrenceville Market House will be celebrating its grand opening on Thursday Jan. 27 from 4-7 pm.
Here’s a look at the businesses in the Lawrenceville Market House:
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