Council advances $50 million Downtown TRID despite public opposition, controller’s deficit warning, and benefits that are “murky at best”

Top Agenda Items

• URA says the TRID can turn around an $813 million drop in Downtown property values
• Two hours of comment, 40 speakers, and almost no support for the Downtown TRID
• Controller Heisler urges caution, citing $44.7 million deficit
• Downtown TRID amendment would guard service workers from layoffs but require them to give up the right to strike

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URA says the TRID can turn around an $813 million drop in Downtown property values

Pittsburgh City Council’s July 22 committee meeting featured two hours of public comment and two and a half hours of council discussion about the proposed Downtown Pittsburgh Transit Revitalization Investment District (TRID) Implementation Plan.

Representatives from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) also made their case to council. The proposal — with an initial $50 million investment by the city — calls for 80% of the money to be directed to developers to improve their properties. The money will be paid back through their increased property taxes over 20 years. 

The URA’s Director of Government Affairs and Strategic Initiatives Catherine Murray said the urgency comes out of Downtown real estate assessments declining by $813 million since 2024, which reduced city tax revenue by $7.9 million.

Downtown property taxes account for approximately six percent of the city’s total revenue.

Council Member Deb Gross of Highland Park noted that, ultimately, this will amount to approximately $42 million of the city’s projected $700 million in revenue for 2026. Combined with an 80% occupancy rate Downtown, she said, “I’m not sure that there’s that much of a crisis.”

In contrast, Council Member Erika Strassburger of Squirrel Hill North said, “The gamble, in my mind, is not doing anything, allowing our property values to continue to decrease.” If that happens, “we have to make some very painful decisions.”

Other TRID-related properties, such as Bakery Square, have a 12-times return in assessed value, according to Susheela Nemani-Stanger, URA Executive Director.

The meeting contained little on transit development even though a transit-anchored project is the basis of a TRID.

Nemani-Stanger said the inclusion of the Strip District in the value capture area — which Gross said is against state statute — is because “it’s all one walkable community” and the state encourages walkability.

Thomas Link, the URA’s Chief Development Officer, said the TRID could yield approximately 1,000 housing units with about 30% being affordable, with the remainder at market rate. Murray said that would bring the current 18% affordable units “closer to 21%.”

The proposed implementation plan also includes 20% of funding going toward unspecified public infrastructure projects. Nemani-Stanger said the method “allows for flexibility and future-forward thinking.”

Council Member Barb Warwick of Greenfield said, “Any public benefit is murky at best.”

Two hours of comment, 40 speakers, and almost no support for the Downtown TRID

The meeting started with two hours of public comment as 40 speakers addressed council about the TRID.

Nearly all spoke in opposition.

Criticisms included 80% of financing going to developers, the vagueness of the 20% allotted for public infrastructure and an overall distrust of the URA’s motives.

Ken Regal described the arrangement as one where “the public bears risks and costs while the private sector reaps the benefits.”

Mel Packer warned that developers were “smelling blood.”

Many faulted the process as rushed and opaque, with several arguing it may violate Pennsylvania’s public-engagement law.

Dean Mougianis said the transit language read as if a drafter was told to “throw some transit sounding stuff in there” while Peter Kaplan called the implementation plan “a piece of crap.”

One speaker in particular drew council members’ attention during their own discussion later in the meeting.

Kimberly Smith, a cleaner of nearly 40 years at the former Alcoa building — now luxury apartments owned by PMC Property Group — began her comment on recently being laid off from her job. “The tenants became much more than people I worked for. They became my friends,” she said.

Choked up and unable to continue, she handed her written statement to another speaker.

“In an instant, 37 years of hard work, dedication, and relationships were taken away even though she had never received even one complaint about her work,” he read. “She cannot afford to lose her union  job, simply because they want to save money. After 37 years, she deserved better.”

Controller Heisler urges caution, citing $44.7 million deficit

Controller Rachael Heisler had her own assessment of the proposed Downtown TRID.

In an email to council on Tuesday, Heisler argued against it citing the urgency of the city’s financial distress. As she told council during a June 24 post agenda meeting, 2025 ended with a $44.7 million deficit. This year is expected to end in the red as well. It takes three years of deficits to trigger Act 47, which puts city finances under state control.

Heisler attributed a similar Downtown redevelopment plan — which included more than $34 million in subsidies to attempt to bring in department stores — as a component of the city’s 2003 entry into Act 47.

“I think it is reasonable and responsible to consider how confident we are that the long-term benefits of this proposal would exceed the revenue we would lose in the short term,” she wrote.

Heisler pointed to the URA’s statement that its TRID projects could generate $2 million for the city in 2029. Heisler noted, however, that — as is — in-progress Strip District projects would bring $2.2 million in additional revenue in 2029. A TRID would reduce that revenue to $550,000.

Heisler also said several proposed and in-process projects would not bring in additional tax revenue because of Downtown’s 20-year tax-abatement program for developers.

Heisler also cautioned that if the URA did not put aside money from the bond for the first years of debt repayment, “the City could potentially be on the hook for more than $3 million in 2027.”

“These are lean years,” she wrote, “and combining revenue loss with potential debt expenditures will only make them leaner.”

Downtown TRID amendment would guard service workers from layoffs but require them to give up the right to strike 🔗 

The legislation was changed after council’s June 3 committee meeting to include a requirement to pay a prevailing wage and service employee protections as negotiated by the 32BJ branch of the Service Employees International Union. 

Developers that receive financial distributions of $100,000 or more will have to pay at least the prevailing wage to covered employees. This matches the city’s statute for its own subsidy agreements.

Another condition of the financing mandates that employers have to prevent or mitigate the displacement of building service employees — such as security officers, custodians, and maintenance workers — currently employed at the property.

Employers in those properties will also be required to have a valid collective bargaining agreement or union contract. Those agreements, however, must include a provision prohibiting “picketing, work stoppages, boycotts, or other economic interference” until financial recovery is complete. Instead, all disputes must be submitted to final and binding arbitration.

If approved, the TRID would be in effect for 40 years, though council would individually approve each 20-year bond related to it. The first, for $50 million, is expected to be in front of council before the end of the year.

Council voted six to three to move forward with the TRID. If it passes council’s final vote, scheduled for next week, the proposal will go before county council, the school board and Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s board.