PITTSBURGH — A new state-of-the-art community field and youth recreation complex is coming to Pittsburgh, the Steelers announced on Thursday.
The complex will be built in a section of Hazelwood Green that is most easily accessible to the community and will serve kids from Hazelwood and across the Pittsburgh region. Hazelwood Green is located directly across the Monongahela River from the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, the Steelers’ Southside training complex and offices.
Activities will include youth football, clinics with current and former Steelers players and coaches, boys and girls flag football, soccer games and clinics and building renovation to allow indoor sports and recreation activities, so the complex can be used year-round.
“Youth sports is huge in this area,” said Barb Warwick, Pittsburgh City Council District 5.
In the future, the Steelers said the complex could include top-tier food and beverage concessions and enhancements to the main field so it could be utilized for high-school sports.
The project is a collaboration between the Steelers, Tishman Speyer, who will serve as the master developer and the Richard King Mellon Foundation.
The Richard King Mellon Foundation, Pittsburgh’s largest philanthropy, awarded $10 million to Steelers Charities and to fund construction on the new field.
In a release, it described the new field to be “centered on a shared belief between the three organizations in the central importance of sports and recreation in youth development, and a shared commitment to assure that such opportunities are available to all. The project is meant to decisively address a well-documented shortage of youth-centric sports and recreation destinations in the City of Pittsburgh.”
The field will be built at the site’s southeast entrance on Hazelwood Avenue between Gloster Street and Tecumseh Street.
While the project is still in the early stages, community stakeholders shared they are excited but eager to learn more.
We asked Warwick her first reaction to the announcement: “Excitement, surprise people have lots of questions: What is this going to be, who is going to be able to use it?”
Important questions for Saundra Cole-McKamey, a member of the Hazelwood Cobras Youth Football League: “We are grateful that it’s coming, but we are also surprised, we were taken by surprise,” said Cole-McKamey.
She said she had no idea until the announcement was made, and now wants a seat at the table to ensure community members in Hazelwood are put first.
“I think that we should have a community benefit agreement between whoever the partners are and our community,” Cole-McKamey said.
Warwick said she looks forward to seeing the foundation work with residents to make a lasting investment in Hazelwood.
“We are going to do this development in the right way in a way that uplifts the people who are living here today, in addition to bringing new people to Pittsburgh,” Warwick said.
Construction will begin next year with a grand opening planned for 2025.
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